Digimon Tamers: The Empty World
by RogueTamer2k7
Summary: This is the last chance they have to save their partners and they're going to take it, even if it means defeating another digital abomination and rescuing another group of kids to do so. Unfortunately, one of them has a secret that could endanger the team. Rukato.
1. Epilogue

Digimon Tamers: The Empty World

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Chapter 1: Epilogue

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own digimon.

* * *

Four figures gathered to discuss the outcome of the recent war in front of an audience. One of them, a large, blue dragon named Qinglongmon (or Azulongmon) was the first to speak.

"Recent times have been difficult, but I agree that we can finally declare the war to be officially over!"

The cheers from the audience, consisting mainly of digimon that had reached the Mega stage thanks to Culumon's shining evolution but who had been forced to regress due to the damage inflicted upon them by the D-Reaper's attacks.

"Now, we must rebuild," Zhuqiaomon said, "It will be a long road ahead, but if we all work together, we should be able to become greater than ever before."

"Unfortunately, there is a slight problem," Baihumon said. "In my realm, a new threat has emerged in the form of a powerful digimon that has not only been able to drive back the D-Reaper, but has also enslaved every digimon to wander into its area. Daemon has the floor!"

"I have personally encountered the digimon in question," Daemon said, floating towards the center of the arena where they were having the meeting. "It is very powerful and seems to be in a number of places at once."

"How can we possibly trust the word of such a digimon?" Zhuqiaomon asked in disdain. "We know your kind!"

"Except that I only achieved this form thanks to the shining evolution that you invoked," Daemon responded, "Before that, I was simply a DemiDevimon who had gotten on the wrong foot in life. Ever since then, I have seen the horrors of evil upon this world and I refuse to accept that life even if it is in my blood."

"Oh, sure, as if we could trust…"

"Just let Daemon continue!" Qinglongmon exclaimed. "He worked alongside me during the D-Reaper war and you have no right to question his loyalties."

"As I was saying," Daemon continued, "The digimon we're dealing with a digimon who like me had his power boosted by the effects of the Shining Digivolution. Only unlike me, it didn't join the sovereigns, instead opting to take out its revenge on the digital world by enslaving any digimon it could. The digimon in question is known as TysiachGlazkovmon and we need to figure out a way to defeat it without getting enslaved ourselves."

* * *

"So, you're saying that we can't go get our partners?" Jenrya asked, tears going down his face. It was just after the D-Reaper got sucked back into the digital world along with their partners and the group was meeting in the conference room at Hypnos.

"Unfortunately, we don't have an ark ready for when you need to get home," Yamaki explained.

"Actually, I did backup the data for the original ark so the tamers can go if they need to," Shibumi corrected.

"However, it's still a bad idea. The D-Reaper still exists, even though it's a great deal weaker than it used to be. There is no way we should risk these children's lives by sending them there. So the discussion is closed. Just enjoy yourselves for the day. The battle is over."

* * *

It was hard to enjoy themselves, though, since their partners were still in the digital world. That night, Takato looked at the drawings he made of Guilmon in remembrance of the days they had spent together. Ruki felt lonely at the thought of Renamon not being with them. Jenrya played a computer game, only to be reminded of how he met his partner, Terriermon.

_Please be okay, _they all thought at one point in the night.

The next few weeks were far from easy for them, but they finally got into a rhythm. There was no way they were going to get their partners back and they just had to accept that. Except that they couldn't truly let go.

One day, after school, Takato was walking by Guilmon's hideout on the way home when he thought he heard the laughing of a Digignome in the distance. Because of that, he decided to check his partner's old hideout. And when he did, he saw a gateway that he could use.

There was no time to waste. He had to go get the others.

* * *

"What do you mean you found a portal?" Ruki exclaimed, partially out of joy and partially out of disbelief.

"It was right there in the shed. There was a hole that Guilmon dug out and that hole ended in the portal."

Jenrya wasn't too sure. "If it turns out to be a portal to the digital world, then how do you expect us to survive there without our partners?" the half-Chinese boy asked.

Ruki agreed with the Chinese boy. "It would almost be suicide."

"Then how else do you expect us to get our partners back?" Takato asked.

The red-head looked at Jenrya. "Okay, brainiac, you have any ideas?"

The Chinese boy looked at her in surprise. "I don't. Maybe we should ask the monster makers for some advice."

"Yeah, you go do that. Watch, they'll say no. Why don't we just pack up and go?"

"Well, we need to let them know so that they can bring us back when the time comes," Takato told the girl. Ruki just shrugged and started to walk away.

"Okay, I get it. But let's go as soon as we can, okay?" she said, leaving.

"Alright, I guess I'll see you later, then, Takato," Jenrya said before the two parted ways.

Walking into his house, Jenrya came across his father while he was watching TV. The middle-aged Chinese man was watching the news when his son got his attention. "Hey, dad, there's something I need to talk to you about."

The man turned around and looked at his son with a smile on his face. "What is it?"

"Well, Takato… um Takato found a portal to the digital world." The look on Jenrya's father's face changed from his smile into one of shock.

_No, this can't be. If that's the case, then the barriers… _"Where is the gate?"

"In the park just like when we went to the digital world last time."

The man got up and walked out of the house, but not before telling his son something. "We'll talk about this later. Honey, I'm going out for a little bit!"

Jenrya looked on in surprise. _That look in his eyes… no!_

He ran back to his room and turned on the computer to check his e-mail and then proceeded to pack his backpack with what he thought he might need for the digital world. He also grabbed the phone to call Takato's house.

His computer finally booted up as his friend answered the phone. _"Matsuda residence."_

"Hey, Takato! I told my dad about the portal to the digital world and he just ran out of the house."

_"What? He just up and left?"_

"Yeah, I think he's going to Hypnos."

_"It's probably nothing to worry about. What do you think they could possibly do about the portal?"_

"I don't know. I just think we should get out of here and go to the digital world as soon as we possibly can."

_"Okay, I get my stuff together and we'll leave first thing tomorrow morning."_

Just then, Jenrya opened up his e-mail, seeing a message from an anonymous sender titled: GO TO THE DIGITAL WORLD IMMEDIATELY! "Just a second, Takato," Jenrya told his friend just as he was about to say goodbye and hang up.

_"What is it?" _

"I just got an e-mail." Jenrya opened the message up and read it.

**You and your friends have to go to the Digital World right now, because this will be the last chance you have to see your partners ever again. If you don't, Hypnos will fill the portal with concrete and in a couple years there will only be a handful of digimon left (including the sovereigns, the partners of a handful of tamer and TysiachaGlazkovmon) and your partners will all be gone, possibly enslaved by TysiachaGlazkovmon.**

** One of the few remaining tamers with a partner in the future was one of three kids who went to the digital world, or who will go to the digital world tomorrow after one of them finds a portal there. The tamer in question will be the only one who comes back if you don't help, so part of your mission will be to rescue them from the clutches of TysiachaGlazkovmon.**

** If you're wondering who sent this message, watch the last episode aired of Season 3. I was in it, albeit at the very end. If you think that what I'm saying is farfetched, ask Ryo about where he's from. Oh and tell him that Koushiro Izumi and Ken's son Osamu both said hi. We're from the same world, though I've never met him personally. Those I mentioned were from my successor teams.**

** I wish you luck. The fate of the digital world rests in your hands.**

Jenrya didn't know whether to believe the outrageous message that he just read. Then again, he wouldn't have believed that digimon actually existed more than a year ago.

He punched into his wooden desk. He had to go rescue his partner. He had to make sure Terriermon was okay and that this ridiculous message was false.

_"What was that, Jenrya?"_

"Call Ruki. We're going to the digital world tonight!"

* * *

Ruki was about to go to her bed when her cell-phone started ringing. She rolled her eyes. Her hair was down and she was in a bathrobe when she answered the annoying device, seeing it was Takato and not a credit card company.

"What is it, goggle-head?"

"Jenrya got a message that all our digimon are in danger and this is the last chance we have of going! We need to go to the digital world tonight!"

"Hold up, we're going to the digital world?" A smile crept onto Ruki's face. "That's what I'm talking about!" A few minutes later, the girl was dressed and out of her room, walking out the door of her house.

"Um, where are you going, Ruki?" he mother asked while watching TV.

"Oh, you know, the usual, the digital world," she said hurriedly as she walked out the door. It took a few minutes for the words to sink in, paralyzing her with fear for her daughter.

* * *

Ruki only had to wait for a few minutes at the shed that used to belong to Guilmon, Jenrya coming by first. "Where's Takato?" she asked.

"Calling everybody else," Henry replied.

The red-head rolled her eyes. _He better not be inviting Mr. Perfect or the loser twins! Ugh, chasing those two idiots across the digital world last time was a pain in the…_

Her thoughts were interrupted by footsteps. A bearded man wearing a hat walked up to them. "Hello, Jenrya."

"Shi… Shibumi! What are you doing here? You weren't the one who sent the message, were you?" Jenrya asked in surprise.

"No, I received a message that you were leaving as well. Do you have any idea who sent it?"

Jenrya shook his head. "The hint I got was that he appeared in the last aired episode of season 3. I can't remember what happened, though."

"I was in a coma at the time."

"It was literally right before the giant pig deva invaded Tokyo," Ruki said. "Tanya, Osamu and Kentaro went down to where the original chosen were sleeping. Only one of them was left alive."

"What was his name?" Jenrya asked.

"They didn't reveal it at the end of the episode. He just came out of the stasis chamber barely awake. I just remember his long, black hair and that he had the crest of friendship. There was something weird about the stasis chambers, though. There were six of them along with six names on the screen."

"Before we get carried away talking about fiction, I need to tell you why I'm here," Shibumi said. "I have a program I need you to take to the digital world and to give it to you, I'll need to connect your digivice to my laptop."

Jenrya nodded and handed the mysterious man his digivice while he sat down on the ground and connected it to the computer. He accessed the program and it started to upload to the digivice. While the program was getting uploaded, the others started showing up, starting with Hirokazu and Kenta, followed by Juri, Ryo and finally Takato arrived last.

"Finally you showed up, gogglehead," Ruki chided the boy.

"Hey, I had to call everybody," the brown-haired boy responded.

The girl rolled her eyes.

"So, I heard you guys are going," Juri told Ruki.

"Yeah. Wait, are you coming too," Ruki asked in surprise. The other girl just shook her head.

"I'd just be in the way. Take care of Takato, will you?"

Ruki was surprised that the girl would tell her that. _Don't she and Takato like each other?_ The red-head looked at her fellow tamer, who was busy laughing about something with some of his friends.

"Well, I guess I'll say goodbye. Have a good trip!" Juri exclaimed, before walking away while waving at her friends.

"Okay, it's all set," Shibumi said, closing his computer. "It's a cold night. You kids better hurry up and get going before you freeze to death. Have a good trip and keep safe."

"Alright, you bet we will!" Takato said. The entire team said goodbye as the computer scientist left them behind. "So, what is it?"

"Shibumi said that it was something that we should deploy in a safe spot and that it was necessary for the future of the digital world," Jenrya replied.

"Okay, are we going or what?" Ruki asked.

"Yeah, I'm freezing my butt off out here!" Hirokazu exclaimed.

"It's not that bad!" Kenta objected.

"Yeah, we're going. Too bad we don't have a flag this time," Takato said. "Let's do this!" he led the group into the hole in the back of the shed where the portal was. He smiled. They were finally going to see their partners again.

A few minutes later, they were gone and in the digital world.

* * *

**A/N: Well, there goes the first chapter. I hope you liked it. Yes, it's Rukato, just there hasn't been much to work on for them yet. I'm hoping to slowly develop the relationship, but the main focus of the story is the adventure. Basically this fic takes place in the same timeline as Runaway Locomon and in a different timeline than the CD drama and is intended partially as a lead-in for my Digital Union series (the first one, Echelon, is up if you want to read it. It's an elsewhere fic about another team of tamers).**

**Oh, and the digimon TysiachaGlazkovmon's name comes from a Russian phrase meaning 'a thousand little eyes'. I first thought of it while brainstorming 'What if Duskmon could Double Spirit Evolve' and that was what I came up with.**

** I'm not sure how long this fic's going to be (I'd guess about ten chapters or so). Also, this chapter is short for me, but the rest should be long.**


	2. Missing Children

Chapter 2: Missing Children

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Disclaimer: Don't own digimon.

* * *

Shortly after arriving in the digital world, the tamers decided it would be best to rest, even though they didn't exactly need to. Still, it was the middle of the night and they all had the mindset of needing to sleep, so they all took turns taking watch while the others dozed off.

At the end of Takato's watch, which was just before sunrise (or whatever the digital world equivalent would be), Ruki came to relieve him.

"Hey, Takato, it's my turn to make sure no evil digimon appear," she said. Takato just nodded and continued sitting. "You know you can go back to bed now."

The boy just shrugged. "I don't really feel like going back to sleep right now," he replied.

Ruki rolled her eyes and sat down next to him. "Enjoying the view?" she inquired.

"Not much of one is there?" The duo watched the desert that seemed to stretch for miles. "I wonder if any of the places we visited while we were here are still around."

Ruki lay back on the ground. "Beats me. I guess we just have to find out for ourselves." The girl looked up at the globe in the sky. "What do you think Juri is going to do while we're gone?"

"She'll probably just go to school and have fun hanging out with Miki and Ayaka, like before she became a tamer. It was horrible what happened to her partner."

Ruki frowned. "Yeah, really, it was. I don't what I'd do if I lost Renamon."

Takato smiled at her. "Just think about how a year ago you probably wouldn't have cared what happened to her. Have you come far or what?"

The girl smiled back. "And you're no longer the wuss you were!" she exclaimed while playfully punching him.

"Ow!" he faked. The two just laughed. Then Takato got back onto a more serious subject. "What do you think our partners are up to?"

"Probably just trying not to get killed," she said glumly. "You know, we haven't seen any digimon since getting here."

Takato didn't notice that. "You're right. You don't think they were all…"

"I hope not. Talk about depressing. Then again, what would the D-Reaper have done if we didn't stop it?"

Takato lay back. "No kidding."

"So, do you like Juri?" Ruki asked suddenly. Takato was seriously taken aback by the question, and was sitting up again.

"I guess. I don't know," he said nerviously. "Why?"

"No reason. She just told me to look after you."

Takato was surprised by that. _I wonder why she told Ruki of all people to do that. Then again, maybe it's a girl thing._

_ Juri does care about me but… I don't know. _Takato put his hands on the sides of his head and rolled over, facing away from Ruki. _This is so confusing!_

Ruki chuckled and rolled her eyes, muttering "Stupid gogglehead" under her breath.

Takato broke out of his stupor after a few seconds, choosing to put whatever it was he had with Ruki and Juri aside. He checked his digivice to try and bring up the compass, but instead the screen on the digivice itself said "Updating…"

"Ruki, is your digivice doing this too?"

"Doing what?" she asked, pulling out her digivice and finding the exact same message as the one on Takato's. "That is… strange. I don't remember it doing that before."

Takato decided to look on the bright side. "Maybe whatever new features this thing will have on it will help us find our partners easier."

Ruki smiled at him. "Maybe you're right."

The brown-haired boy smiled back at her. "Maybe."

The red-head thought up another thing to say. "So, what do you think our parents are up to now? You think they figured out that we're all gone yet?"

Takato just shrugged.

* * *

Mayumi Lee knocked on her son's door, wondering why he hadn't gotten up yet. "Jenrya, is everything alright?" she asked. Her husband had already left for work at Hypnos and so she was in charge of making sure the kids got to school on time while her husband wasn't there. After a couple of minutes of hearing nothing, she entered into the dark room cautiously and walked over to her son's bed, intending to shake him awake. What she found instead was a pair of pillows.

Her scream was deafening.

* * *

Janyuu was at the site of the portal that Takato had found yesterday with Yamaki. A cement crew was in the middle of sealing off the back part of the concrete shed and making sure that whatever hole in the building wasn't at all visible.

It was at about the time that the crews finished with their work that Shibumi showed up. "What's happening?" the man asked.

"We found a portal to the digital world and we sealed it up before the kids could use it," Yamaki replied. A feeling of realization swept over Shibumi, but he didn't show it.

"I take it you don't want the children to be getting their partners?"  
"No, it would be too dangerous for them to go into the digital world," Janyu explained. "We don't know the state the world is currently in and besides, they could end up attacked by any number of enemy digimon before reaching their partners."

"Of course."

Shibumi knew that there were hardly any digimon left after the D-Reaper devastated the other world. However, he also realized that whatever digimon that remained were either very powerful due to the effects of the shining digivolution or weakened by the reaper to the point of devolution.

His thoughts were interrupted when Janyuu's phone started to ring.

"Hello… What? He's gone?" Shibumi knew what was coming. "But, where… Oh no." Janyu looked at the shed that they had just sealed up. "This can't be happening."

It was at about that point that Shibumi received a text message. It read: _"Have any of the parents found out yet?"_

In reply, Shibumi typed back: _"Unfortunately, Janyuu Lee just deduced that his son has gone to the digital world. Don't worry, I didn't tell them."_

To console the man, Yamaki decided to speak up. "We'll search the digital world for your son on the double." _Then we'll call all their parents to make sure they know._

"But how could he have possibly known that we were about to do this and go straight to the digital world. I didn't mention anything about it."

"I don't know. Perhaps a member of Hypnos spilled the beans or perhaps he simply deduced that something was wrong from how you reacted."

"He received an e-mail," Shibumi said.

"What? You know about this?" Janyuu exclaimed before grabbing the mysterious man by the collar. "Why did you tell him about it?"

"I didn't. Someone else did. I don't know who, exactly. He sent us both e-mails."

"Why didn't you stop them?"

"Because the fate of the digital world depended on them going. I had to meet them to give your son a program that I have been developing on the side for quite some time but that I haven't had a chance to implement. I checked the status of the digital world and I found out that the population is far lower than is to be expected. The number of digimon remaining after the D-Reaper attack is in the hundreds."

Janyuu let go of the man's collar, almost dropping Shibumi to ground in the process. "Give me whatever you have."

Shibumi was already a step ahead of his associate. "This is the phone number the man gave me. He knows far more than I would have expected."

Janyuu dialed the phone number into his cellphone and called it. After a few rings, someone answered.

_"Hello, Janyu. I wasn't expecting you to call so soon."_

"Who are you and why did you inform the tamers about our plans to block the portal?"

_"I informed the tamers about your plans simply because they needed to go find their partners. If they don't, they wouldn't ever see their partners ever again. You don't know about what's happening in the digital world, Janyuu."_

"How would you even know about our plans, anyway?"

_"I learned about them from the tamers themselves, though I learned them more than twenty years from now."_

Janyuu scoffed at that.

_"Oh, come on, you don't believe I could be from the future? Ever hear of Milleniummon? He can travel through time, you know? The existence of digimon themselves opens up a number of possibilities. Time travel, alternate realities, monsters that are strong enough to destroy entire planets. In fact, the final enemy my team fought against, for instance, consumed the entire digital world before we could defeat it."_

Janyuu didn't want to admit it, but the mysterious man on the other line had a point. "Still, who are you? And why do the tamers need to find their partner digimon so badly? I mean, I know they have a bond with them, but…"

_"I'm not going to reveal my identity just yet. However, I am going to tell you that had the tamers hadn't gone to the digital world, it would have fallen to another team of tamers to defeat the threat there and as there aren't any other teams anywhere else in the world, it would end up being a disaster. In the timeline I've heard about, only two members of the team survive: one with a Shoutmon who fought valiantly to the end and finally defeated TysiachaGlazkovmon and a deserter. There is also the matter of a major event that will occur two and a half years from now, in August of 2004."_

"What will happen?" Janyuu inquired.

_"This reality and two others will converge, causing any digimon still in the human world to return to the digital world. Thanks to a program I added to Shibumi's latest digivice upgrade, though, the tamers will still be able to keep their partners until after the Unification."_

"What… what causes that?"

_"I haven't figured that out yet, though I may be on the verge of doing so. I'm afraid I've told you enough for now. You will get all the information you need, but only when you need it. I need time to flow the way it was so that I can put all the pieces together. Have a good day and don't bother calling."_

With that, the mysterious stranger hung up and unbeknownst to anyone there, promptly disposed of his cell-phone.

* * *

Takato's parents had no idea that their son was missing since he simply said that he was going to be spending the night with Hirokazu and Kenta, so the phone call later on that day from Hypnos about the parents meeting each other was a surprise, throwing them into a state of panic and denial.

* * *

Rumiko Makino was by no means surprised that her daughter hadn't come home the night before. However, it still hurt her that her daughter was so willing to go off to some strange world on a whim.

She wanted her daughter back and as she went through her daily routine of getting her pictures taken at her modeling job.

It came as no surprise later on that she got a call from Hypnos telling her that they were going to have a meeting that afternoon after work. Still, time seemed to crawl slowly as her daughter's behavior sunk in.

* * *

Upon returning to Hypnos, Yamaki asked for the others to send a probe into the digital world. 'Find the tamers. We need to locate them, now!"

"I'm on it!" Reika exclaimed, sitting in her chair and typing frantically while Megumi did the same. Large amounts of information poured onto the screens that surrounded the duo.

Yamaki moved around the lab to check on the status of the other Monster Makers and various personnel and came across one of the newer recruits not doing his job, instead opting to work on a digital world program of his own making. The man was middle-aged with long black hair and circular sunglasses. "Kurata, what are you doing?"

The man looked up in surprise. "Hmm… What do you want, Yamaki?"

"You're supposed to be performing a search of the digital world for digivice signals, not working on your weapons for digital defense. We have just received word that the tamers are currently in the digital world and we need to get them back as soon as possible. Got it?"

"Oh, sure, I'll run a search right now."

Yamaki rolled his eyes. He hoped that he could find an excuse to fire this new recruit and replace him with someone who wasn't as insubordinate. Apparently Mizuno had a former college roommate from Chile who would make a good replacement except for the fact that the man knows next to no Japanese, but Kurata's barrier technology was surprisingly good, even if Yamaki found the man a little off.

Now, all Yamaki had to do was call all the parents of the missing children and try to gather them all together for a meeting that afternoon. Again.

* * *

A day earlier and on the other side of the world, a boy was running as fast as he could to escape his pursuers. He was a fairly good player of the digimon card game and he had just beaten a group of players who just happened to be bigger and older than him, much to their dismay. He played fairly, but despite everything, they claimed he cheated. Maybe wagering cards was a bad idea.

As it was, his parents probably wouldn't have liked that he did that. But the cards were rare and useful for his constant deck revising.

He jumped down off a bridge and into a drainage ditch, rolling to lighten the impact. Then he hid under the bridge and, as soon as he was sure his pursuers were gone, ran into a nearby tunnel.

It was then when he saw a strange, glowing creature fly out of it.

The first thing that came to his mind when he saw it was that it was a digimon, but when he pulled out his digivice to check its stats, nothing came up. Still, he thought something must have been in that tunnel, so he wandered down it a ways.

That was how he found the gate.

* * *

After finishing a sweep of the digital world that was enhanced thanks to Shibumi's expertise and outside help, the group gathered around the computer with the largest screen.

"This is the digital world. And thanks to the info I have on digivices, these are the current locations of the tamers," Mizuno spoke, directing the group of adults to the large screen. A series of six red dots signifying Takato, Ruki, Jenrya, Ryo, Hirokazu and Kenta was in a part of the map on the far left of the screen. There were numerous black areas, signifying entire parts of the digital world that had been destroyed by the D-Reaper.

"Okay, if those are the Tamers, then what are those?" Yamaki inquired, pointing at a dot on the opposite side of the map.

"Those must be the kids that our team of tamers were sent to rescue," Janyuu deduced.

"That is exactly who they are," Mizuno responded.

"So our mysterious time-travelling friend was telling the truth," Yamaki surmised, despite obviously not believing that the person was an actual time-traveler in the slightest.

"Except that the e-mail said that there were three of them," Janyuu said.

"Of course, the e-mail said that only one of them had a partner," Shibumi responded. "Let's see, thanks to the upgrades I installed in the digivices remotely last night, I should be able to find info on our mystery tamer."

"Make it quick. The parents are coming in only a few minutes," Yamaki advised.

"Unfortunately, due to the digital world's nature, I'm having trouble coming up with the information. It could be awhile."

Yamaki knew that everything would take awhile. It wasn't easy getting the children back the last time they went to the digital world though at least this time Shibumi had the backed-up code of the original ark. Unfortunately, Yamaki didn't have time to give them the communication device.

Hopefully they'll be able to get all the tamers when they gather in one place, including the other team.

* * *

Back in the digital world, Takato and Ruki had apparently fallen asleep next to each other. They were sleeping pretty deeply when Jenrya came to wake the two up. Much to his amusement, Takato had his arm wrapped around Ruki's waist. To save his friend some grief, Jenrya decided to wake him up first, shaking his shoulder a little bit until the guy's eyes fluttered open.

And then the goggle-wearing tamer just jumped back in shock at where he was. Ruki just rolled over to face away from him.

"Uh, was I… Did I fall asleep on Ruki?" Takato asked.

"I guess. It looks like you fell asleep together. Don't worry, I won't tell her," Jenrya replied with a smile before walking over and waking up Ruki. The girl sat up and stretched, still a bit groggy.

"Good morning," she said, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "Oh great, I fell asleep, didn't I?"

"Lucky for you, nobody's seen a single digimon," Jenrya commented. "It's like they're extinct or something."

"I hope not," Takato objected.

"I know they're not, especially since that e-mail mentioned TysiachaGlazkovmon and also that apparently one of the kids we have to rescue had a partner," Jenrya said.

"So, when are we going?" the girl asked.

"Anytime," Jenrya responded before heading back to camp, Takato and Ruki following close behind.

A few minutes later, they were moving away from where they parked for the night, following the signal of their partner digimon that their digivices were picking up. It seemed that whatever upgrade was being installed on their digivices was completed and the holographic map actually showed terrain. After a few minutes, Takato was basically leading the team with Ruki close behind.

"So, you ended up with your arm around me, huh?" Ruki asked, surprising Takato.

"What? How did you…?"

"I woke up after a couple minutes with your arm around me. I didn't want to embarrass you so I didn't do anything but fall asleep again and then a few minutes ago I asked Jenrya if you still had your arm around me when he woke you up and he said yes."

Takato looked at the girl who was standing right behind him while continuing to walk. "Sorry about that."

"Don't mention it," the girl said with a chuckle.

Unfortunately Takato wasn't looking where he was going and he almost fell down a cliff, only saving himself in the nick of time by grabbing onto the ledge. "Takato!" exclaimed Ruki who crouched down and tried to grab his arm. Hirokazu ran up next to the girl and tried to do the same thing.

"Takato, grab on!" he yelled. Takato tried climbing up, but paused when he heard Ryo's voice.

"Guys, hurry up! There's a data stream heading your way!"

Ruki looked to the side and noticed the pink beam of energy approaching the trio. "Guys, move back!" she said just as the data stream hit her, Takato and Hirokazu, taking the three of them to an unknown area of the digital world. After the beam passed, the others realized that the digivice signal led past the large chasm that they had reached.

"Jenrya, what would you say are the chances that the three of them are closer to our partners," Ryo asked.

"I honestly don't know. Man, this is starting to turn into the last time we went into the digital world," he commented, noting that the current team consisted of him, Ryo and Kenta.

"So, how are we going to get over _that?_" Kenta inquired, emphasizing the massive chasm.

"There has to be a way across," Jenrya replied. "Ryo, does this region of the digital world look at all familiar?"

"No, it looks as if the D-Reaper really did a number on the place," the legendary tamer replied.

They were going to have to find their partners sooner as opposed to later and search for the others at the same time as they sought out the three others that were trapped in the digital world with them.

* * *

**Next Chapter: The Empty World**

**A/N: Believe it or not, there's only one OC that has appeared so far in this story and that would be the one who found the second portal. Mystery Man's actually a canon character despite being a member of the original team of digidestined from the Adventure universe. You'll find out who he is. The answer's not too surprising since the story explores a bit of how season 3 would have been in the Tamer's universe, in other words it being a sequel to Adventure (as you'll have probably gathered from the last chapter. It will be explained how that happened in the Tamers' universe but not in ours). And the guy's series wound up not being an adventure prequel due to executive meddling (among other things) altering his series. Look up Literary Agent Hypothesis. **

** Also another note: in this fic, the series took place in 2001 while the current fic takes place in 2002. Just letting you all know for when they mention dates and whatnot.**


	3. The Empty World

Chapter 3: The Empty World

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

* * *

Juri spent her day at school, thinking about the others. She hoped her friends would be okay and that they wouldn't end up getting hurt by any enemies they came across. Then again, from her memories of the digital world, the only enemies they came across who were truly dangerous were Orochimon and Beelzemon, the latter now being far less dangerous since he was on her side.

After school, she hung out with Miki, Ayaka and several other students such as Yuuji and Tadashi. The group was shocked that the Tamers had left on such short notice, but were generally accepting.

It was after that when Juri went to her session with the psychologist that she checked her digivice. There was something wrong, or maybe something right. The screen was no longer filled with static.

_Could that mean that Leomon was reborn? How could that possibly happen._

She thought about that all the way to her psychologist, realizing it was probably too good to be true.

* * *

Takato, Ruki and Hirokazu were there one minute and then they were gone, swallowed up by a rogue data stream. Jenrya, Ryo and Kenta just stood there, dumbfounded and not knowing what to do.

"Okay, I hope they didn't get warped into one of those giant holes like this one," Kenta said worriedly. Two of his best friends were gone. He knew that this trip would be dangerous, but he was expecting more along the lines of an evil digimon attacking than giant, mile-wide chasms and data streams coming and sucking them up. Of course, the bespectacled boy had to deal with enough data streams the last time he was in the digital world, much to Ruki's chagrin.

His friendship with Hirokazu definitely got him in a lot of trouble.

Ryo, on the other hand, just stared at the giant hole in the ground. It reminded him too much of what little information he had read on the original chosen children of his world and about how at the time the digital world was slowly being eaten away by a group of power-mad digimon. Thankfully, by the time of Taichi's team, the secrets to absorbing that world's data in such away were almost completely gone and the worst that happened to the digital world was the Dark Masters creating Spiral Mountain.

And yet he knew that this time it wasn't a digimon that had caused all this but instead it was the work of the D-Reaper who had deleted more than a third of the digital world a week before its defeat. In a lot of ways, that made it worse since there was no known way of retrieving that data.

Jenrya was just dumbfounded.

"Just how many digimon survived the D-Reaper?" he asked no one in particular.

Ryo just glanced at him. "You're right. It's as if all the sudden the world's completely empty."

Kenta looked at the duo with a frightened look on his face. "Wait, you mean… our digimon might be…"

"Don't think that," Jenrya ordered. "Since our partners came here after the D-Reaper was defeated, they're still alive. They have to be."

"So, are we going to find the others or what?" Ryo asked.

Jenrya pulled out his digivice. Each of the tamers noticed that the digivice had been upgraded the night before, so they were curious about the new features it contained. Jenrya had already tested out the map features of the device and found them quite extensive. He pulled up the holographic map and looked at it. He put it in terrain mode and pressed a button on the hologram to allow him to search for other tamers nearby.

The answer surprised him. _"Nearest tamer: 4900 kilometers away. Suggested method of travel: use vehicle or partner digimon capable of high speed."_

"4900 kilometers!" Kenta exclaimed upon seeing the absurdly high number. "It's gonna take forever to travel that distance."

"Then we might as well hurry up," Ryo replied. "Either that or we could take a datastream."

None of the three liked that idea.

* * *

They didn't know how long they'd been falling but they were at least relieved when they hit the ground. It seemed they were also out of the desert at last, winding up in a forested area in a section of the digital world where it was night, but where exactly were they?

Takato pulled out his digivice and checked the map to see which direction his partner was in. It seemed that his partner was to the west this time. As a bit of an experiment, he put his fingers on the holographic map and zoomed out, showing the location of his partners. It turned out they were still quite a ways away, but nowhere near as far as they were. The other tamers were much farther away, so it was their best bet to meet their partners first.

Except there was another digivice signal that was far closer than anyone else, so close that it might only take a few hours to reach them.

"So, any ideas, gogglehead?" Ruki inquired, getting up.

"We'll far closer to our partners now, so we should go and get them first. Also, there's another digivice signal on the way."

Hirokazu was busy tinkering with his digivice like Takato was. "Man, what's that?" he asked, looking at the screen.

Takato checked the digivice map again and saw that there was a large mass that was marked by a blue dot on the screen. He clicked on the mass and the screen changed to show what looked like a cluster of eyes with the name 'TysiachaGlazkovmon at the bottom of the holographic projection. "TysiachaGlazkovmon, Mega Level, Variable Attribute."

"Variable Attribute? What the heck's that supposed to mean?" Hirokazu asked.

Ruki gave a somewhat logical, if incorrect, answer. "Maybe its type varies among members of the species?"

Takato had only one thing on his mind. "Whatever it is, it's close to our digimon. We should catch up to them before they come across that thing," he suggested, much to the agreement of the others.

Then Ruki thought of something. "Hey, have any of you thought of contacting your partners through the digivice?"

Takato was surprised he hadn't thought of that before. "That's a good idea." So, he clicked on the button on his digivice that would allow him to do that. "Guilmon, can you hear me?"

_"Takato?" _the red dinosaur asked.

"Hey, buddy. What's up?"

_"We're in the digital world all alone and I miss you, Takato. I just got my Rookie form back, too."_

"Good boy. We're going to come and get you, alright, so just stay put. There's a massive digimon in your area that you don't want to encounter, okay?"

_"Okay, Takato. I'll stay away from it."_

Ruki and Hirokazu were talking to their partners as well, warning them of the enemy in their area and telling them to stay put. Then the trio decided it would be best to move towards their partners.

"Just so you know, the tamers we're supposed to rescue are on the way to our partners," Takato told the others.

"Come on, do we have to rescue these guys? I'm sure they'll be fine on their own," Hirokazu objected, eliciting an eye-roll from Ruki.

"What part of it being part of the mission don't you understand?" Ruki asked.

"Who gave us this mission, anyway?"

Takato didn't have an answer to that question. "I just think it's the right thing to do. Chances are this other team's not as experienced as we are and won't be able to survive that long and only one of them has a partner."

"That's exactly what I was thinking," Ruki agreed.

"Okay, then I guess we should get a move on," Takato said, following the digivice signal towards the other group of humans.

* * *

A few minutes after being contacted by his partner, Guilmon smelled something peculiar. He could tell that Renamon could sense it too since her fur was standing on end. Terriemon also noticed something was up.

"I believe my sensors are detecting an anomaly," Hagurumon, Guardromon's rookie form said, feeling the need to stand on guard against whatever they were about to come up against. Impmon, however, was the first to see who was coming up against them.

Or rather, what.

The small digimon turned around to see an eye open out of nothingness and stare straight into his soul. "Uh, guys!"

Renamon saw the eye as well, and then spotted another one opening up. Then another and another. After a few slow seconds, more than a dozen eyes appeared, blankly looking at them.

Guilmon was at a loss as to what to do and so were the others, so, being his usual goofy self, he decided to greet the mysterious abomination that was surrounding the group of digimon. "Uh, hi, my name is Guilmon, what's your name?"

Then the eye in front of Impmon shot a beam into the digimon, causing a large amount of data to spill out of the digimon while he screamed out in pain.

"Impmon, Champion form: Boogiemon, Ultimate form: Phelesmon, Mega form: Beelzemon. You have absorbed many Chrysalimon, a Taomon, a Rapidmon, a Leomon, a Makuramon and a Caturamon. Dark Reconstruction" One by one, the data that the digimon had loaded started to clump together into either the digimon he had killed or twisted versions of said digimon. He noticed a BlackRapidmon and a Doumon, but that wouldn't prepare him for what he saw next: a twisted version of Leomon known as MadLeomon. And the disturbing thing about each of these digimon was the eye that each of them had imbedded into their bodies.

"Oh no, they're using the data we've absorbed to create an army of digimon!" Renamon exclaimed.

More eyes were gathering and more data was being extracted from the various digimon that were there until there was an army of all the digimon that they had defeated and absorbed in the past.

They were almost certainly done for.

"Flame Inferno!" someone yelled out from above, causing a massive amount of fire to come in between the partner digimon and the various eyes and deleted digimon. And from the heavens like a twisted savior came Daemon with two rookie-level digimon on his shoulders, a small, red dragon named Shoutmon and an armored, orange dragon named Ryudamon.

After landing, the cloaked digimon then created an energy shield around the partners and lifted them up, ground and all.

Terriermon in particular was taken aback by the cloaked digimon. "Hey, I know you. You were a villain from the TV show!" the dog-bunny exclaimed.

"I'm sorry, Terriermon, but I don't have a clue about what you are talking about," Daemon responded, maintaining the energy field and flying away.

"And who are you calling a bad guy? This guy just saved all our butts," the Shoutmon explained.

"He saved you?" Lopmon asked, eliciting a response from Ryudamon.

"Yeah, well, he was kind of in the area and stopped that thing from killing Shoutmon and I. He said he was on a mission to come and retrieve whatever rookie digimon he could find."

"Yeah? I doubt he's up to any good," Terriermon said, obviously not trusting the digimon. Guilmon, on the other hand, had a different reaction.

"Hey, Mr. Cloaked Digimon, our tamers are in the digital world. Do you think that you can help us find them?"

Daemon looked at Guilmon for a second. "Can you contact them?"

"I can try." Guilmon then concentrated for a few seconds as he tried to get a hold of his human partner.

* * *

It was at that time that Takato, Ruki and Hirokazu were walking through an especially rocky part of the forest they were in, trying to carefully avoid any giant chasms like the one Takato almost fell in by constantly checking their digivices as well as using the flashlights they brought with them. Then Takato's digivice started beeping and he answered his partner, only to see Daemon on the other end.

"Guilmon! What's going on?" he almost shouted, obviously frightened by the sight of the Lord of Wrath.

_"Oh, hi Takato, this is Daemon and he just saved us from an evil digimon that looked like eyes,"_ the lizard replied calmly.

"Wait, did your partner just say Daemon?" Ruki asked in surprise.

_"Daemon says he can drop us off to where you guys are at if you'd like."_

Takato felt his left eye twitch at the thought of the Season 2 villain being willing to do them a favor, but it seemed they didn't have much of a choice.

"Okay, we're in a forest nearby. Let me check the map." One new and unexpected feature of the D-Arc 2.0 was multitasking which allowed him to look at his partner's location on the map while talking to his partner, something he couldn't do with the previous digivice.

Another ten minutes later, the entire group was there. Takato still felt extreme shock at the sight of a good version of such a digimon.

"Alright, here you go," Daemon said, landing the group of digimon on the ground.

"Wait a second… Where's Jenrya?" Terriermon asked.

"Well, we kind of got separated," Takato replied. "You know, data stream."

"I hope they're all okay. Then again, the digital world's pretty devoid of everything except for freaky eye monsters."

"Daemon, is there any chance you knew what that Digimon was?" Renamon asked.

"That was TysiachaGlazkovmon, an abomination digimon that uses the data of dead digimon to execute his twisted plans," the cloaked digimon replied.

"Evil, you're not much of a good guy yourself," Ruki said.

"I admit, I made some pretty poor choices in the past. However, the only reason I have this form now is because of the Shining Evolution's power to warp-digivolve me from DemiDevimon to this form. Since seeing the atrocities of the war against the D-Reaper, however, I've been working at turning a new leaf. Since before the war, actually. I was a pretty sadistic Rookie until I met up with a Champion who was far worse."

"And what might that digimon be?" Ruki inquired, disbelieving.

"TysiachaGlazkovmon's Champion form of Duskmon. I was amazed I survived. He said he only spared me because I wasn't a threat, though that was after a long period of me trying to kill me and load my data."

"So you have a history," Renamon inquired. She wasn't too surprised. Chances were, though, that if Daemon had reached his level on his own, he would have been corrupted beyond redemption, but since he was a DemiDevimon, there was still a small chance. As it were, Rookie digimon were considered children.

"So, it turns out there's another team of tamers we're trying to find and only one of them has a partner. Do you think you can help us?" Takato asked.

"I'm currently in a hurry to deliver these two Rookies to the Sovereigns," Daemon explained, indicating Shoutmon and Ryudamon. "There's also the matter of getting the rest of the digimon to their partners."

"Wait, why are you taking these guys to the Sovereigns?" Hirokazu asked.

"Simple, every Rookie and Champion level digimon of small size will be headed to the human world to hopefully find partners. It is part of a back-up plan by the Sovereigns for in case their planned strike against TysiachaGlazkovmon doesn't work. Though, since you are here, we might stand a chance."

Hirokazu definitely did not trust the guy. Daemon realized he would get distrust and discrimination from almost everyone he met as long as he lived. It was the price of having such a form, but he used it to keep himself on track, refusing to give into the evil impulses that plagued his mind from time to time. It would continue to take work, but he refused to give in to the badness in his heart.

"I guess I'll leave with the rest of the digimon. Now, I'm going to have to have one of you contact your tamer," Daemon told Terriermon, Lopmon, Monodramon and MarineAngemon, the group that was going to go along with him, Shoutmon and Ryudamon to meet the others.

Ryudamon was hesitant. He didn't really want to go to the human world to find a partner and at the same time he was curious about who humans are and what they are like. Using the nighttime darkness, he slipped from under Daemon's radar and hid in a tree, hoping the cloaked digimon couldn't sense him. He also thought that maybe he could find a partner in the other group. He watched the tamers and digimon that were staying behind say goodbye to the digimon that were leaving. Then he followed the other humans and digimon to see what was what.

* * *

Still working on a way to get through to the tamers without needing another digivice, Shibumi got an e-mail from the mysterious man. The Monster Maker kept the man on top of the situation, even though he wasn't a member of Hypnos. As it was, the man seemed to know too much but at the same time seem trustworthy.

The e-mail Shibumi got back went like this:

**There seems to be some confusion. You mentioned that you detected the digivice of the tamer on the team that needs to be rescued. However, it was my understanding that the tamer in question, Jacob McCloskey, didn't become one until when they fought a DarkTyrannomon controlled by TysiachaGlazkovmon nearly a day after entering the digital world, though he did get the egg sooner. If there is a digivice signal, he must not have known about it.**

** Have you figured out the identity of the tamer in question?**

Shibumi shrugged and checked the program he had that was attempting to extract the tamer information from the digivice. It already had his name and the name of his partner all line up.

_Name: Kyle Dibenko, Partner…_

Mizuno looked at the partner's name in shock. It seemed impossible.

If that was the case then Kyle was most likely leading their team straight into a trap. Because of this, he notified the man, who unbeknownst to him was in the middle of a business meeting.

* * *

Back in the digital world, not far from the location of Takato's group a duo of humans and one digimon were sleeping. The digimon, a Puttimon, had just hatched earlier that day from a digi-egg and was currently resting in the arms of the boy that wished for the strongest Rookie partner from a group of Digi-gnomes they encountered. The boy was snoring loudly while holding his potential partner. The boy's brother was right next to him, though their faces were obscured by the darkness.

The third human in the group was a boy with curly brown hair covered in front by a pair of square goggles with rounded edges whose twelve-year-old face wasn't obscured because he was looking at his digivice. He was examining a map of the digital world when he noticed a dot heading toward the camp they were at. Clicking the dot, he got stats from a digimon: _DarkTyrannomon, Virus Attribute, Champion Level._

_Wait, that things heading toward us._

Just then, he heard Puttimon scream, waking up its potential partner and his brother.

"Okay, what's going on," the brother asked.

"There's a Champion-Level digimon headed our way!" Kyle, the brown-haired boy, shouted as the two brothers got up groggily. Then a familiar black dinosaur burst through the trees, causing the younger and chunkier of the two brothers who had black hair and brown eyes to scream like a girl and run with his partner in hand while his brother just ran along with Kyle.

"I knew coming to the digital world was a bad idea!" the red-haired older brother said. He weighed a bit less than his brother, but was still overweight.

"Then why did you come?" Kyle asked, running as quickly as he could.

"Because my brother wanted to come!" Then they heard the younger boy trip, dropping his partner in the process, the black dinosaur heading straight for him. Puttimon saw that the boy was in danger.

"Puttiiiiii… Cupimon!" The digimon reached his in-training stage, a small, white angel, and moved between his partner and the enemy digimon. The younger boy was still on the ground, screaming his brains out.

"Oh, crap!" Kyle shouted, running to try and help the kid get out of the way. It was obvious the in-training digimon was no match for DarkTyrannomon and was going to get eaten alive.

"Angel Ring!" the in-training digimon shouted, generating a ring from around its forehead and tossing it at the enemy digimon, damaging its shoulder. Maybe it was more powerful than Kyle realized.

"Jacob, get up," the brown-haired boy commanded, grabbing the heavy, screaming boy by his arm and pulling him up. Cupimon was still attacking, doing a surprising amount of damage to the enemy digimon considering its level.

Then it struck the eye in the middle of DarkTyrannomon's chest, deleting that and finally causing DarkTyrannomon to disintegrate.

Jacob had a confused look on his face as an orb of light formed, revealing a grey and white digivice that the heavy boy snatched. Kyle looked beyond surprised.

"Okay, can anyone tell me what just happened there?" the other boy, Steven, asked.

Just then, a large, nine-tailed fox appeared, carrying a pair of humans (notably an Asian girl with red hair and a goggle-headed Asian boy with brown hair and his arms around her waist) and a red reptile digimon followed by a rust-iron machine digimon with another human. The humans disembarked, the goggle-wearing leader walking up to introduce himself.

Unfortunately for Kyle, Jacob and Steven, Takato Matsuda couldn't speak a word of English.

* * *

Next Chapter: Shining One

A/N: Guess what Kyle's partner is. Just guess. Or better yet, read Digital Union: Echelon to get a short answer. Review it too. Believe me, it needs reviews.

Yeah, not much Rukato in this chapter. Maybe in the next chapter you'll get some Rukato goodness. Hey, I don't want to rush them. Besides, there's the love triangle business that has to be cleared up (or at least the one-way crush Takato has on Juri). As long as they don't end up like the whole Asami-Mako-Korra love triangle on Legend of Korra (which I liked, I just wish it had a more concrete ending as far as the Masami aspect of it before unleashing full-on Makorra). That and I didn't want to start the story with them automatically liking each other out of the blue. Besides, they're still young (especially if you go by the ages in the original Japanese version).

A little bit of trivia: Kyle's last name is a reference to the character Dmitri Dibenko, a Russian programmer from the Sergei Lukyanyenko novel, 'Labyrinth of Reflections', which is basically a Russian Matrix (though it predated the Matrix by two years). I haven't read it… yet, but I intend to, in its original Russian (provided I can get my Russian reading ability to the appropriate level. Learning languages is hard!).

Oh, and Cupimon's power shouldn't be too surprising, considering its Rookie form (you'll see him next chapter).


	4. Shining One

Chapter 4: Shining One

* * *

Disclaimer: Don't own.

* * *

The business meeting finally came to a close and he walked out the door of the conference room along with everyone else. The subject of the meeting was what to do with the digimon card game, which wasn't discontinued despite the protests of anti-digimon groups, and the anime itself, which was still cancelled. The rest of the episodes of Season 3 weren't going to be released, despite how they would have served as a good warning for the future on behalf of the tamers of the world. Also, the plans for Season 4, tentatively titled Digimon Frontier, were scrapped. It was a shame since the season was going to be a Digimon Adventure prequel and the man wanted to see an accurate portrayal of his time in the digital world for once.

Then again, if it would have been green-lighted, there was a chance they would try to distance the show from Adventure shoddily like they did in other worlds.

The man pulled out a small, grey device, a D-Terminal. He had received the device from Koushiro Izumi who in turn got the device from Tanya who got it from Daisuke Motomiya's son. It still had all ten retrieved digimentals on it, the only missing ones being Destiny, Darkness, Desire, Boastfulness and Tenacity, the whereabouts of which were still unknown. Anyway, he pulled it out to check his e-mail.

He had to restrain himself from gasping in shock at the contents of it.

The man looked around the room suspiciously as he typed in a reply.

**If that is the case, then we'll need to let the Tamers know immediately. Have you figured out how to contact the Tamers in the digital world yet? If not, then we might need Juri Katou's help. I would assume you applied the same updates to her digivice, despite her not having a partner. If not, then you'll need to do so.**

The man felt haunted. He remembered a meeting with Jacob McCloskey more than 20 years in the future.

_"He sacrificed his life so I could get away. That thing already killed my brother and then it killed him."_

_ "I'll keep that in mind. Since I'll be entering the reality where you became a Tamer first, I'll rescue your team and then once the Unification occurs, I'll rescue mine."_

The man realized then and there that he was probably going to need to reveal himself to Hypnos and risk invoking the wrath of Janyu Lee. The only thought that went through his mind at that point was a simple one.

_What would Takuya have done?_

* * *

Kyle heard Takato spout off some gibberish in a language he didn't know. He figured that the guy didn't speak any English, so he decided to attempt something.

"I am Kyle," he said, pointing at himself.

"Kairo?"

"Kai-uhl. Kyle."

"Kyle," Ruki said almost effortlessly. "I speak English. This is my friend Takato and his friend Hirokazu."

"Oh, good. You guys are the Tamers from Japan that fought the D-Reaper, right?"

"Uh, yeah," Ruki replied, accidentally eliciting an enthusiastic handshake from the brown-haired boy.

"Wow! It's so great to meet you guys! So, what are you guys up to in the digital world?"

"We came here to find our partners," Hirokazu blurted out, much to everyone's surprise, especially Takato's.

"Wait a second, how come you can speak English but I can't?" The goggle-headed Japanese boy asked in his native tongue. Hirokazu just shrugged.

"Hey, I liked learning English in school for some reason."

"But I thought you didn't even like school."

"Eh, whatever."

Ruki gazed at the trio and then looked at her digivice. "How come two of you are tamers while only one of you has a partner with you? Where's the other digimon?"

Kyle didn't know what to say. The other two were surprised. "Wait, you mean that two of us are Tamers?" Steven asked.

"Yeah, there are two digivices here," Ruki stated.

With that, Kyle pulled out his digivice, a grey device with a purple ring around the screen. "Yeah, you got me."

"What? You mean you've had a digivice all this time?" Jacob asked in shock.

"Yeah? When were you going to tell us?" Steven inquired, looking down at the shorter boy his age with suspicion.

"Hey, it was going to be a surprise. This thing was leading us to my partner, anyway. I was just expecting you guys to find yours there as well."

The next one who spoke, surprisingly, was Cupimon with great innocence. "What's your partner?"

Kyle just shrugged. "I have no idea. I just got this digivice one day."

Ruki had a hard time believing that and so did Renamon. "Which way is your partner?" the vixen asked.

Kyle pulled out his digivice and brought up the compass function, indicating the direction. The fox's eyes narrowed. "There is a very dangerous digimon that way."

"TysiachaGlazkovmon," Ruki said. "A digimon consisting entirely of eyes. I detected it with my digivice."

The goggle-headed American looked up at the mention of eyes, the memory of an eye opening up out of nowhere in the real world coming to mind.

"Maybe we can go around it?" Kyle inquired.

"I don't think that'll work," Steven said.

"For all we know, your partner digimon was found and loaded by it," Renamon added.

The group paused for a couple seconds before Jacob spoke up again. "So, can you train us to become better Tamers?"

Ruki smiled at the thought. "Renamon, would you like to spar with Cupimon while Takato and I teach this guy a few things?"

"I promise I'll go easy on him."

Cupimon shrank back in fear.

* * *

He missed his best friend's antics. Right about that moment, Hirokazu would have been complaining about how far they've had to walk and about how much farther they had to go until they reached their partners. There was no way they could make it in a reasonable amount of time. It was as if they had to cross the continental United States and then some to find the digimon.

"You know, I'm beginning to think that going through a data stream might not be a bad idea," Kenta heard Ryo, of all people, say calmly. "Because we might end up near our teammates far faster."

"Don't you remember that those things send you places at random," Jenrya asked. "For all we know we might end up in some evil digimon's lair."

Ryo chuckled at that one. "There are worse places I've been."

Jenrya thought about that for a second and then spoke. "So, you knew someone by the name of Koushiro Izumi, huh?"

The legendary tamer looked over at Jenrya, his normally calm demeanor changed. "I… I guess."

"And you happened to know a Ken Ichijouji as well."

Ryo was definitely shaken while Kenta was merely confused.

"You're talking about fictional characters as if they were real," the bespectacled boy said.

"They're apparently real where he comes from, hard to believe."

Ryo had to admit defeat with that one. "He's telling the truth. I… I moved on from that."

Kenta looked at his role-model with surprise. "You knew… the events of Digimon Adventure and 02 actually happened?"

"Adventure, yes, but I left before the events of 02 were supposed to happen. I can't confirm or deny anything from that series. Like I said, I left that all behind."

"But you knew Taichi," the bespectacled boy said.

Ryo stopped dead in his tracks. It wasn't like they were really getting anywhere anyway. "Have you ever been manipulated?"  
Jenrya had no idea what to say. "You mean that… they used you for something?"

"Yeah. You see, at one point, all the Chosen were kidnapped by an evil digimon named Milleniummon. I was somehow the only one who could stop him. Later on, Milleniummon came back and the Chosen had this tournament. The tournament turned out to only be a ploy to train me to take on Milleniummon again. In the end, the only other Chosen who didn't know about it was Ken."

Jenrya and Kenta realized they hit a hard spot for Ryo, who continued speaking. "In the end, I defeated Milleniummon, but I ended up getting warped to another world, a world where he ruled, and I had to fight him again. It seemed like a never ending battle for me. After all that, though, Monodramon sacrificed himself by merging with Milleniummon to defeat him for good. Then I was given a choice: I could go back to my old world or I could come here. Because of what happened back then, I decided to come here."

The Chinese boy knew that Ryo had been through a lot, but he had no idea. He put his hand on the Legendary Tamer's shoulder. "Don't worry, we'll never do anything like that," he said.

"I know."

Jenrya pulled out a piece of paper. "Apparently the person who sent us on this mission was a member of the very first team of Chosen from your world. He didn't tell us his name, but he mentioned Ken having a son named Osamu."

Ryo looked at Jenrya in the eye. "The guy must have been a time-traveler or something."

"That's what I'm guessing."

Then Kenta thought of something. "Have you guys ever seen the leaked info on the planned fourth season?"

"Fourth season?" Jenrya asked.

"Yeah, there was going to be a Season 4 about the original Chosen and it was going to be called Digimon Frontier. You didn't hear anything about that?"

Both of the other boys shook their heads no. Kenta grabbed the backpack he was carrying and pulled out a few sheets of paper. "Apparently, there were going to be five main characters: Takuya Kanbara, Koji Minamoto, Junpei Shibayama, Izumi Orimoto and Tomoki Himi."

"Wait, so you think it may have been one of those five?" Jenrya asked.

"Maybe. He did say that he was a member of the original Chosen team, right? So we just have to narrow it down to who he was."

"I met a Junpei Shibayama once. He worked at a fast food restaurant near my house." Ryo just shrugged.

"So, there's a chance this group is from your world?" Jenrya said.

"Yeah. I remember him having a girlfriend who was from like Italy or something. However, I can't really see him working with us in such a roundabout way. In fact, I don't remember ever seeing a digivice on him or anything."

"Any others look familiar?" Kenta asked, handing Ryo the character designs he got off the internet. Ryo glanced over them.

He thought about it for a second. He may have seen some of them around town, but none of them really jumped out at him. The fact that the art style really wasn't realistic either didn't help matters either. "No, not really."

* * *

So far, Jacob's training was going surprisingly well. The kid seemed to grasp the concept of using Card Slash to improve his partner's strength pretty easily. Strangely enough, despite the small angel digimon being only an in-training level digimon, he seemed to hold his own against both Renamon and Guilmon even without the use of cards.

The digimon was powerful, too powerful.

"So, what do you think of this kid?" Ruki asked Takato. During the entire time, she has basically been acting as his interpreter, which was a strange thing for the red-head to do.

"Kid? He's only a year younger than us," Takato replied. "He's definitely got potential."

"Yeah, he just needs more experience, right?"

"Exactly."

At about that time, they heard Hirokazu shouting in anguish. The duo looked at the guy who was playing against Kyle in the card game.

"Come on, let's make it three out of five matches," Hirokazu said, seeing that he lost once again.

"Hey, I won, fair and square," Kyle said in response, smiling.

Ruki just rolled her eyes. "Hey, Kyle, how about we play a match?" she requested.

"Sure thing. I never lose," the brown-haired American responded. A few minutes later, he looked on in shock as Ruki took away the last of his points, winning the match against him.

"You're decent, I guess," Ruki said while picking up her deck.

"Hey, I play online all the time," Kyle said.

"Yeah, but I'm one of the best players in Japan."

"Who's the best?" Kyle inquired while gathering up his cards.

"Oh, a guy named Ryo."

"He another Tamer?"

Ruki nodded glumly before getting up and turning towards Hirokazu and speaking to him in Japanese. "By the way, this is the last time I'll cover for you."

"Hey, I didn't ask you to do that in the first place."

Takato decided to congratulate Ruki. "Good job on that match."

The girl smiled back. "Oh, it was easy. Kyle's a Veemon specialist and since I use the Renamon line, I had a type advantage even though he reached the digimon's Ultimate form. I swear, his only objective was to turn that Veemon into Arresterdramon and then protect it with modify cards."

Kyle had an idea that they were talking about his strategy. Of course, he had other decks online, such as an Elecmon deck, but the Veemon deck was his favorite for some reason, even though he was sure he wouldn't get one as a partner. He looked over at his red-haired friend who looked like he was bored out of his mind. It didn't help that they were waiting to move until dawn when they would actually be able to see where they were going.

Then he noticed Guilmon. The digimon seemed to be sniffing the air for some reason, and then the dinosaur digimon unleashed a fireball in a small patch of grass, causing another Rookie to pop up out of the brush, this time a small yellow-furred dragon with black samurai armor on its head and back jumped out.

"Hey, what was the big idea?" the yellow digimon asked, angrily.

At this point, everyone had their attention focused on the small digimon. Renamon recognized him immediately. "You were with Daemon, weren't you?"  
"Yeah? What of it? I wasn't about to head to the human world. I'd rather go help fight that giant eyeball thingy, anyway."

Impmon rolled his eyes before speaking. "So, bub, do you think you can digivolve without a partner?" he asked.

"What? And you can?"

Impmon's form immediately grew into the humanoid biker that is Beelzemon, startling Ryudamon. "You bet I can!"

Ruki put her hand against her forehead. "Don't you know that part of the reason you guys were going to our world in the first place was so that you could eventually fight TysiachaGlazkovmon?"

"Yeah, so? I didn't want to wait."

Steven glanced at the small digimon. _You don't think that this guy's going to be your… no, nevermind. That's wishful thinking._

As it was, the red-head was kind of jealous of his brother and his best friend, who both had partners. The guy decided to walk away from the tree he was leaning against and toward the small beast digimon. "The name's Steven," he said.

"Ryudamon!"

Nope, no digivice appeared in the air at the moment the human and digimon shook hands before Steven decided to just head back to the tree he was sitting against. "Good to meet you."

"Wait, do you have a partner?" Ryudamon asked as the red-head walked away. The guy shook his head. "How about we be partners, then?"

"And how do you expect to do that?" the red-head asked while sitting down.

The small dragon shrugged.

"That's what I thought."

Ruki looked at Takato and spoke to him in Japanese. "Any ideas?"

Takato shook his head. "I didn't even hear a thing the two said. I guess we could continue training Jacob."

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

Kyle and Hirokazu looked over at Steven and Ryudamon, who both looked bored out of their minds, sitting against a tree. "You think they might become partners?" Kyle asked.

Hirokazu just shrugged. "Maybe, I just became partners with Hagurumon over here by healing him."

"What's the highest level he can go?"

Hirokazu shrugged. "Well, when I first met him, he was an Andromon, but then he devolved into Guardromon. That was his form during the entire D-Reaper invasion."

"Um, Hirokazu, would you be able to help me reach my Champion form once again?" his partner decided to say just then.

"Uh, sure," he said, pulling out his deck. "Man, where are my Super Evolution Plug-ins? Ah, here we go!" He pulled out the card, put his deck back in its box and then slashed it. "Card Slash, Super Evolution Plug-in H!"

"Hagurumon digivolve to… Guardromon!" The gear's new form was that of a round, rust-colored robot. "Now that's the form I remember."

Just then, Hirokazu recognized a series of characters on his digivice's screen.

"What does it say?" Kyle asked.

"Uh, it says that I don't need to use a card. I just have to say the phrase: Digivolution Activate and my partner will automatically digivolve."

"Can you do that now to make him become Andromon?"

"Let's see. Digivolution Activate!" Nothing happened. "Eh, I guess I'll still need a blue card for that one!"

Kyle thought about things. "Hey, Jacob!" he greeted, walking towards the heavy ten-year-old who was powering up his partner. "I just found something out about the digivice. Say 'Digivolution Activate' while holding out your digivice to make your digimon digivolve automatically."

"Uh, okay. This is going to be so cool!" he exclaimed, holding out his digivice.

"Kyle, he can't do that!" Ruki objected, walking towards the trio.

"Hirokazu just did it to bring his partner to the Champion Level."

Ruki looked at Jacob and back at Kyle. "Okay, try it."

Jacob then held out his digivice towards his partner and shouted. "Digivolution Activate!"

At that exact moment, Cupimon became engulfed in white light. "Cupimon digivolve to… Lucemon!" Now the digimon had the form of a small boy with twelve wings and a very serious expression on his face. The angel digimon turned around to face his partner. "It seems you have helped me reach the Rookie stage."

"Yes!" Jacob cheered.

"Lucemon…" Ruki scratched her chin. There was something very wrong about the new Rookie.

"What about it?" Kyle asked.

"Nothing."

The brown-haired American knew it wasn't nothing, but the red-haired girl didn't want to talk to him about it so he didn't push the matter. Instead, he watched as the girl walked over to her own goggle-headed friend and pulled him to the side, chattering to him in rapid-fire Japanese.

It seemed to Kyle that Takato was the only one she truly got along with here. Then a question went through his mind: _Are they a couple or something?_

* * *

It was at about that time that Daemon went through one last data stream. He used the data streams to move about the digital world as quickly as possible, despite how random they all were. After each stream, he then had Terriermon try to contact his partner.

"I think I got him!" the dog-bunny exclaimed at the cloaked digimon's feet.

* * *

At about that time, Jenrya finally got a call from his partner. He had never been contacted by his digimon like this before and simply assumed it to be a new feature of the upgraded D-Arc. The Chinese tamer brought up his screen to see Monodramon, MarineAngemon and a third digimon that he didn't recognize. He clicked the screen to see that it was a digimon called Shoutmon. "Terriermon?"

"Yeah, this is me. You see, this big scary Mega's giving us a ride and he wants you to tell him where to go."

Terriermon wasn't going to show him the Mega for some reason. He knew since it obviously wasn't Shoutmon who was a Rookie. Watch, they were on Zhuqiaomon or something. "Okay, I'll do that."

A few minute later, he was shocked to see the digimon being carried by a Daemon of all Digimon. "See, I told you we got a free ride."

Ryo looked the most shocked. "That's an evil digimon!"  
"He's not so bad once you get to know him," Monodramon said.

"Don't worry! I know where you're coming from," Daemon said. "In fact, I'll probably go right now. Shoutmon? Are you ready to go to the human world?"

"Wait, Shoutmon's going to our world? Why?" Jenrya asked in shock.

"It's because of the digimon, TysiachaGlazkovmon. The Sovereigns are sending every single Rookie digimon they can muster to the human world to find partners in case they can't defeat their enemy. They will be randomly dispersed throughout the human world as soon as they're gathered."

"But, that's… that's got to be thousands of digimon," Jenrya objected.

"On the contrary, the number of digimon still in the digital world now number merely in the hundreds."

Jenrya didn't realize how desperate the situation in the digital world was. It was no wonder they couldn't find any other digimon in all the miles they've walked. Then his attention was directed to the program that Shibumi put on his digivice to bring to the digital world. He wondered what it was.

"Well, I better get going. Hurry up and meet with your friends, will you?" Daemon said right before flying off with Shoutmon.

"We will."

* * *

After doing the dishes, Juri heard her father talk on the phone and then hand it to her. It was Shibumi. "Hello?"

_"Oh, hello Juri. I hope I didn't catch you at a bad time."_

"Oh, no. What do you need?"

_"I need you to bring your digivice to Hypnos as soon as you can. I might need it to contact the Tamers. You see, there's a slight emergency. I found something about one of the American Tamers that they were sent to rescue."_

"Okay, I'll be down there as soon as possible. Bye!" She hung up the cordless phone and gave it to her father. "They need me at Hypnos."

Her father nodded in response. "Okay, I'll take you there."

"Thanks, dad!" Her relationship with her father and stepmother has greatly improved since the D-Reaper invasion separated them from each other. Her father has been very supportive of the girl. Apparently he learned his lesson since she was kidnapped by the giant digital abomination and used by it to further its twisted agenda.

They left for Hypnos. He dropped the girl off at the front of the Tokyo Metropolitan Building and then went to go find a parking space. Just before walking into the building, though, Juri was stopped by a tall, hooded man.

"Excuse me, Miss Katou, but I need you to bring this to Shibumi," he said. The girl took the small storage device and eyed it.

"What is it?"

"It's a message for the tamers."

That was when the girl realized who she was talking to. "Wait, you're the guy who warned the others!"

He smiled. She could see that much at least. "Yes I was. Now I must leave."

The man started walking away when she asked a question. "Can I at least know your name?"

He turned back towards her. "I'll tell each and every one of you in due time."

The man made a run for it and Juri followed, yelling for him to wait. He finally ran into an alleyway.

It was then when she noticed a tall, mysterious digimon come up behind him along with a bulky human boy with blond hair that wasn't much older than she was. The digimon grabbed hold of both his tamer and the mysterious man before disappearing. The girl pulled out her digivice and identified the digimon. Strangely enough, she didn't detect the digimon's Tamer. The digimon was a Baalmon. She saw that it was related to Impmon, a possible Ultimate form, perhaps.

She thought of the blond boy for a second and then realized who he reminded her of: Kentaro Takaishi from the third season of the TV Show. She pondered the whole thing while walking in.

_It couldn't be real, could it? I mean, we know that digimon are real but the TV show is fiction, right? That couldn't actually be…_

She was so deep in thought that upon exiting the elevator, she accidentally bumped into Akihiro Kurata on the way out.

"Oh, you," he said smugly, before going into the elevator that the girl had just come out of. The man sneezed, briefly. Something about that man was seriously off.

"Ah, you finally made it!" Shibumi exclaimed when he spotted the brunette walking into the room. The monster maker led the girl to the computer room, where Yamaki and the others were also waiting.

"I hear you might be able to contact the others," the blond stated.

"Maybe."

"It's a part of the new communication system I installed in the digivice," Mizuno said. "However, I'm not sure if it will work though the barriers between worlds."

"Let's get to work, then."

Before continuing, Juri spoke again. "Um, I was given something." She gave the flashdrive to Shibumi, who eyed it. It seemed to be able to carry a ridiculous amount of data, 100 terabytes.

"Who gave that to you?" Yamaki asked.

"I don't know, exactly. I didn't see his face." _Other than his smile._

"Any other information?" Janyu inquired. "Where did he go?"

"A digimon teleported him, a digimon named Baalmon. He had a Tamer too, a blond boy around my age. I think he may have been Kentaro Takaishi from the third season."

Shibumi looked at her inquisitively and then turned to his computer to bring up a program. "I'm sorry, but that couldn't be possible. There aren't any other tamer in the Tokyo area. And including you, there are only four tamers in the entire world. I have a list of the four digivices they have as well as their locations. All but one of them is currently in Tokyo. And the one that's not in Tokyo doesn't have a partner that can teleport."

"Wait, you mean there's a digimon that has been in this world since the D-Reaper invasion that we didn't know about?" Janyu asked. "How come he didn't go back to the digital world like the others?"

Mizuno scratched his beard. "To be honest, I think it might have something to do with his partner having lived in the human world for years. Remember back in 1984 when Daisy claimed that a digimon emerged from her computer screen, one that wasn't like any of the others in the digimon project?"

Janyu thought about it. "Vaguely," he replied.

"That was the digimon, a Veedramon. You could almost say that he and his partner are the first human-tamer duo, though they didn't own a digivice for years afterwards until I developed the first prototypes."

"What if… maybe they have a different digivice that you can't detect," Juri suggested.

"That is possible, though I'm not sure how they could receive such a thing unless somehow they really were from another world or from the future." Shibumi thought about that for a second. "There may be a way to scan for digimon that are still in this world. I would need to somehow trace their digital matter."

"Do it then, we need to get to the bottom of who this person is that is pulling all our strings," Yamaki ordered. "How long have you two been talking, anyway?"

Shibumi thought about it. "Ever since the end of the D-Reaper invasion. One of the first things he sent me was suggestions on how to improve the D-Arc. Then he followed with actual programs and data to simulate digimentals so that Tamers could armor digivolve if need be. He only sent anonymous e-mails and phone calls."

"So, are we still going to connect my digivice to talk to the others?" Juri asked.

"Of course. I just need to connect it to the mainframe." The girl handed him the digivice which he took. He then opened a port on top and then connected the device via USB cord. Then he brought up the holographic display on the digivice and pressed a few buttons, bringing up the communications screen. The device showed Shaochung's digivice as well as Ai and Mako's digivice since it was using digivice communication on a city level. There was a button at the bottom of the circular hologram that said 'Connect to the Digital World.' Since it was already linked to a computer, all Mizuno had to do was press it, causing eight other names to pop up.

"Who should we talk to first?" Shibumi asked.

"Takato," Juri suggested. Janyu and Yamaki both agreed.

"That would be a good idea," the blond man said.

"Okay, let's do it!" Mizuno exclaimed, pressing the button on the digivice. Now a screen with a message saying 'Connecting…' was on it.

All they had to do was wait for the connection to go through.

* * *

So far, the training with Jacob and Lucemon was going exceptionally well, even though the two senior tamers had to have their partners reach the Ultimate level to be on an even playing field with the powerful angel digimon. So far, Taomon was doing a good job shielding her and Megalogrowlmon from Lucemon's Grand Cross attack. Also, it seemed the angel digimon needed to learn better defense.

"So, how do you think we'll fare against TysiachaGlazkovmon?" Ruki asked Takato. The two of them were sitting next to each other on a nearby log.

"With someone like this, it's going to be a piece of cake. I can't believe this guy's only a Rookie."

"Yeah, I know, right? Oh well, whatever happens, you'll be there. Thanks for translating for me, by the way."

Ruki gave him a smile. "Any time. However, you're going to have to pay attention better in English class!" she teased.

"Hey, I did pay attention. It's just… you know. It's hard to remember all those words and all that grammar. How'd you do it anyway?"

Ruki chuckled at the memories. "My mom made me sit in front of the TV and watch at least an hour of English television every day. I mainly watched cartoons. I've even watched the dub of Digimon."

Takato was surprised. "That's it?"

"Well, there was all the schoolwork I had to do and my mom goes to the States a lot for modeling work. I was bound to pick up something."

"I've never been out of the country. What's it like over there?"

Ruki shrugged. "Well, there's more crime. It seems like everybody has guns, though I don't think these guys do. They don't seem like the type. What, you want to go there?"

"Someday. There are a lot of places I'd like to go, if only I had enough money."

Ruki smiled. "Maybe one of these times my mom goes there and drags me along, we can take you. It would be fun."

Takato smiled. "You really mean it?"

"Yeah. Besides, you're probably one of my closest friends."

The rest of their conversation was interrupted by Kyle. "How's it going?"

"Fine, and you?" Ruki replied.

"I'm a little bored but I'll survive. It's funny, after coming to the digital world, I haven't had to sleep."

"Yeah, you don't need to eat or sleep after coming here. The only reason we did it last night was because it was in the middle of the night anyway."

"What else is there that's different from the show, other than those giant beams of pink energy I mean."

"A lot. For instance, the digital world is separated into various levels. It's quite complicated."

"And another thing: is time in the digital world faster than in ours?"

Ruki looked at him like he was nuts. "Nope." Steven looked up from the tree he was leaning up against in shock.

"Wait, you mean that the same amount of time has passed in the real world? Oh man, I am so grounded." The large red-head got up and walked up to Kyle. "You said that they would be different!"

"Hey, it was just a thought. Besides, it's not like Apocalymon attacked the real digital world."

Ruki couldn't keep herself from rolling her eyes before bursting out laughing.

"What were you guys talking about," Takato asked.

"Oh, Kyle told the others that time was faster in the digital world than in ours."

They looked at Jacob who simply stood there appearing confused.

Suddenly, SaintGalgomon appeared in the sky, coming down with Justimon, Kenta and MarineAngemon on his shoulders. He let the three of them get off before the two Megas devolved.

"There's no way I'm doing _that_ again," Terriermon said.

"How'd you guys get here so fast," Ruki asked.

"We went through several data streams and then used Kenta's radar to find you," Ryo replied.

"It was a pretty rough ride, though," Kenta added, MarineAngemon saying a few incomprehensible things as well.

"So, I see you found the other tamers as well," Jenrya saw.

Kyle walked up to him and shook his hand. "Kyle Dibenko."

"Jenrya Lee. It's nice to meet you," the Chinese boy said in response.

_Why is it that everyone can speak English except for me? _Takato asked himself. However, it seemed Kenta and Ryo were actually quite confused as well. Apparently Takato wasn't the only one who didn't speak the Americans' language. So that was half and half. Somehow Hirokazu actually paid attention to the ESL teachers they've had over the years, somehow Ruki learned it from TV, school and going abroad and somehow Jenrya learned from playing video games in the language.

Why did Takato have to be left out?

At least he had Ruki to translate. The thought of the red-haired girl made him smile.

Well, it made him smile for a couple of seconds until his digivice started to beep. "I have a call?" he asked himself.

* * *

Steven didn't like being around people he didn't know all that much. And now there were far too many in the area. Six Japanese tamers and the other two that came with him to the digital world were a bit much for him to handle, especially since only half the Japanese kids spoke English.

_Oh well,_ he thought, wishing he hadn't gone with Kyle to the digital world.

"So, what do you think, Ryudamon?" he asked. It seemed that the Digimon could understand just about everyone, no matter what language they spoke. Steven wondered how that could be possible.

"Think? About what?"

"Nevermind. I guess I should have stayed home."

"Hey, at least you met me!"

"I guess so."

Then he noticed that the others were all gathering around the goggle-wearing Japanese kid. "Hey!" called out Ruki, "We have a message from the real world!"

Steven got up, followed closely by Ryudamon. "What is it?"

"I don't know. Takato just tried answering it."

All the sudden, everyone's digivices started glowing and they found themselves surrounded by holographic projections of Juri, Yamaki, Janyu and Mizuno.

"Well, what do you know, it worked," Mizuno said in Japanese and then in English.

"So now we can communicate using the digivices?" Janyu asked.

"It seems so," Yamaki said, deadpan. Steven didn't understand any of this nor did he know who these people were.

"Okay, what's going on?" Steven asked.

"Well, we need to talk to something. There is something you all need to know. It's about Kyle's partner."

Kyle tensed up a little bit. "What is it?"

Shibumi looked the goggle-headed American straight in the eye. "Do you even have any idea what it is?"

"No, what about it?"

"Kyle Dibenko, your partner is TysiachaGlazkovmon."

* * *

Next Chapter: To Be a Tamer

Ridiculously long A/N: Anybody figure out that revelation. Man, and now I'll have to update Digital Union: Echelon. Hehehe.

Yeah, it's kind of nice having Takato rely on Ruki for something since it seems like too much she turns into a damsel in distress to be saved by her one true love. Besides, this way their feelings develop slowly. Anyway, the next chapter is a flashback chapter meant to flesh out the OCs. There are a lot of characters in this fic and it's going to take some time to get through all of them.

I know Arresterdramon didn't have a card at this point. Still, I think he would make a good Ultimate for ExVeemon. It just fits.

Another thing: yes, Kentaro is Takeru and Hikari's kid. How he ended up with a digimon of the opposite kind from his parents' partners is a mystery. No, he's not going to play a major part in this fic. The same goes for his two teammates.

The short story Digimon Tamers 1984 mentioned the very first biomerge (in the eighties!). This is my theory as to what happened to it. Also, the other digimentals appeared in the Wonderswan games staring Ryo. I'm not sure they could do armor evolution like the others.

Now, it's not likely that Frontier in its current incarnation (in our world) was intended as an Adventure prequel when it was aired, however, it seems likely that it was originally planned that way (much like Tamers was originally intended as an Adventure sequel but the plans fell apart due to Adventure 02's writing team having such a horrible time with it. Basically, it all boiled down to having two head writers with very different styles and far too many underlings along with Executive Meddling which caused the premature end of the Dagomon arc). I guess in this world, since Season 3 (also called Digimon Adventure 2027: Tamers) was a sequel, it would make since for Frontier to be a prequel this time around. 02 had to have been quite different for it to work out, though (less filler, no Destiny Stones, plots that actually went somewhere satisfying, etc).

PS. Anyone figure out the mysterious caller's identity?


	5. To Be a Tamer

Chapter 5: To Be a Tamer

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own digimon, however I own the OCs in this fic.

* * *

The realization that his partner was TysiachaGlazkovmon hit him like a brick wall. "I know this is hard for you, but it is the truth. Your digivice…"

"Shut up!" Kyle yelled, turning around and walking off.

Jacob was confused. "What's gotten into him?" Steven was not impressed.

"Honestly, you can't figure it out? Kyle's partner's the giant eyeball thingy!"

"How did that happen?"

"How did you figure out that TysiachaGlazkovmon was Kyle's partner?" Takato asked after receiving a translation of Shibumi's message to the American kid from Ruki.

"Well, in the latest upgrade for the D-Arc, I decided to make it so that other Tamers could be identified. I can also track your location in either the human world or the digital world if so desired, though I would only do so if I actually needed to. Such technology could be dangerous in the wrong hands. Basically, you can identify other Tamers much the same way as you would a digimon, provided that the other Tamer has a digivice."

"Great, that means no privacy," Ruki commented.

"Like I said, I'll only use it if I absolutely need to."

Jenrya was the next person to ask a question. "How are we going to learn how to use all these new features?"

Shibumi smiled. "I set up a series of help files that can be accessed from the home screen when you bring up the holographic display." While Shibumi went into all the technical details of the D-Arc's new operating system, Hirokazu decided to follow Kyle back to where he went. He figured that after losing a couple of card games to the American and talking about just about everything digimon, the two of them were at least acquaintances.

* * *

Kyle was busy looking over a massive chasm, apparently the direction his digivice pointed. His face betrayed his complete shock over how everything turned out. He did hear Hirokazu's footsteps, though, causing him to turn around. "What's up?"

"Just seeing how you're doing," the Japanese boy said. "How did you become partners with…"

"I don't know, okay. I encountered a dying digimon that came into our world somehow. I wanted to help him. He told me that that made him know that not everyone's a threat. I didn't know what that meant. You know, it's ridiculous, ever since I found out digimon were real, I wanted to become a tamer, but this is what happened."

"Ever since… How'd you find out digimon were real in the first place?"

"Well, it all began just after school started last year…"

* * *

It was a pretty boring September. Seventh grade had started and he didn't really like it. The kids at school were just so mean sometimes and it seemed that he's basically lost most of his friends from elementary school. At least he still had a couple of friends who could come over on the weekends.

In fact, one weekend would involve them watching the last aired episode of Digimon Tamers, although they didn't know it at the time. Steven's brother Jacob was spending the night over at another friend's house and so he couldn't come over. Another friend of theirs, a black kid who was just as nerdy as he was came over to watch the episode that Kyle got subbed off the internet. Those were the days before broadband when it took three hours to download an episode off the internet and the boy with the curly brown hair did it every weekend. He also invited friends over to watch the show with him.

Hey, at least he was being social.

"So, what do you all think is gonna happen this week?" Kyle's black friend, a guy named Marcus asked. He was wearing a green shirt and baggy blue jeans as well as sunglasses.

"I hope they finally defeat Admiral Zahn, or at least set it up so that he can die in the next episode. I am getting so tired of that guy," Steven said. "Besides, there's all the other stuff in the background like the meaning of all those Bemmon. Why on earth are all those weak Rookies going up against the heroes anyway?"

"Maybe they'll finally reveal who the second Emperor was," Kyle said. "Watch, it was Tanya's father all along."

"I hope not. Dude, that chick has enough angst!" Marcus responded.

"Still, that would explain why a bunch of digimon emerged into the real world and attacked their house, killing her father."

"My theory, the bad guys just opened the gates around her house so that they could make a case for declaring war against the Digital World."

Steven was tired of waiting. "Can't we just watch the show?"  
Kyle brought the video up on his computer. It wasn't the highest quality, but at least they could see everything.

* * *

A large, grey airship descended, hovering over the flowing blue waters of the digital world. Inside the airship, a red-haired Japanese man in his late thirties was busy typing on his computer. The man in question was Koushiro Izumi and he had finally found the file he was looking for.

"Got it!" he exclaimed.

"What did you find?" a nearby girl with long flowing black hair and a pair of goggles on her head asked. She was wearing a yellow t-shirt with a purple jacket over as well as long pants. Her partner, a silver-furred Renamon was nearby.

"This is a video I have to show you guys. It was a message Gennai sent us right before we fought Apocalymon and I think it has to do with where he wanted us to go."

They watched the entire video, which was simply one of an old man telling them about a group of ancient chosen. After the video, the three tamers and last remaining chosen sat their in silence along with their partners.

"You mean there was another group before yours?" Tanya asked, surprised.

"Yeah, there was. Unfortunately, we have no idea who they were."

Kentaro looked at his three friends. "I take it, that's why we're headed for this place that Gennai wanted us to go to."

Koushiro nodded. "Gennai said that the original chosen children are there waiting for a time when they're most needed. He said that he gathered them there after the unification."

Osamu scratched his head. He had no idea what they were going to find. Then a question popped into the raven-haired boy's head. "What about Admiral Zahn? I heard he was patrolling this area."

"I'll keep guard outside while you guys are searching out the place."

A few minutes later, the Zeppelinmon landed and the tamers disembarked along with Koushiro. Then Zeppelinmon devolved back into his rookie form of Solarmon, who joined the others. The place they landed was a massive oil rig.

"So, this is the place the original kids who saved the world are supposed to be, huh?" Impmon inquired, scratching his chin.

"It seems that way. You sure you can handle this, Izzy?" Kentaro asked the red-haired man.

"I'll survive," Koushiro replied. "Remember, if something goes seriously wrong up here, search for another way out."

"That's gonna be hard since we'll be at the bottom of the sea," Tanya commented. "Thank you for coming with us, Koushiro."

Koushiro smiled back at her. "Your welcome. Remember, you guys need to find this guy and get out. No waiting around."

The trio nodded and entered into the lift along with their digimon. Solarmon was a little apprehensive about being in an enclosed area. "You sure this is safe," the series of gears asked.

"Don't worry about it," Osamu replied. "We won't be in here for long and even though you can't become Blimpmon in here, we can find an alternate evolution for you. I've been exploring some of the D-Omega's features and apparently, it has support for alternate evolution lines."

Tanya smiled at the boy. "You would definitely be the one to explore all those features."

"Yeah, some nights I have a hard time sleeping, you know, worrying about my parents. I hope they're alright."

"I'm sure they are." A memory flashed through the girl's head, that of an army of digimon attacking her house. She hid with her mother while her father confronted the digimon. It was said to be one of the events that eventually lead to the forces of Echelon declaring war on the digital world, though Tanya wouldn't have been surprised if it was all staged from the beginning.

A tear flowed down her face, but she wiped it away before anyone noticed. Then her Renamon spoke with her telepathically.

_You're thinking about when your father died, aren't you?_

_ Yeah, I am,_ Tanya thought back, _I still miss him after all these years._

Shortly after that, the lift stopped and the trio of humans and their digimon walked out into the lowest level of the rig. Looking around, there were very few lights still on. Inside the room, there were six chambers, each with a crest on them. It was said that the original chosen first discovered the power of the crests when they needed to ascend to their highest form, though for most, that would imply only evolving to the Perfect stage (known as Ultimate in America). Surely they had to have reached the mega level, or at least some of them. On one side were stasis tubes displaying the crests of courage, friendship and love while on the other side were knowledge, purity and hope. The stasis chambers were all made of a metal that didn't shine and so the tamers couldn't see inside them. On the other wall, there was a series of computer terminals that theoretically monitored the vitals of the chosen, though it wasn't on.

"So, there were six original chosen, huh?" Tanya inquired.

"It would seem that way," Renamon responded.

"Well, let's go check it out," Kentaro said, walking up to the large tube. He was definitely the quiet perfectionist of the group, though Osamu was definitely smarter. He and Impmon examined the tube belonging to the bearer of knowledge, trying to find a way to open it when the found a small console on the side. He examined the various buttons which had words written in syllabic digi-writing which corresponded to the Japanese Kana system. It was kind of difficult without Kanji to figure out the meaning of some of the homophones, though.

However, that didn't stop him from finding the open switch.

Pressing it, he moved over to the side while steam came out of the top of the chamber. It opened and he was expecting to have to catch a falling comrade. Unfortunately, he almost got strangled by a skeleton. "What the heck?" Kentaro pushed the skeleton off, causing the thing to go back into its chamber.

"Oh, great, he's dead! We came all the way here for nothing," Impmon complained.

Tanya wasn't about to give up yet. "Osamu, can you go check the computer terminal to see if you can find info on the status of any of the others?"

Osamu adjusted his glasses. "Okay, I'll go see what I can do." The boy got hard at work on the computer, various bits of data coming across its screen. Glancing at it, he could tell something was seriously wrong. The computer was written in two languages: Japanese Digicode and an esoteric one he didn't recognize. Thankfully, it looked like it was bilingual so he didn't miss out on anything from the second language. He brought up body outlines for the chosen: five men and one woman. Unfoortunately, all were dead and in various states of decay except for one.

"The only one left alive is Friendship."

Kentaro got to work as soon as possible while Tanya talked to Osamu. "Have any idea how this happened?"

"I don't know. It seems this place is abandoned. Maybe there were digimon down here maintaining the stasis chambers but they all had to leave for something."

"Now that is a bummer," Solarmon commented.

The grey stasis chamber opened up, revealing a skinny Japanese man of medium height in a pair of blue boxers. The man was about to fall to the ground when Kentaro caught him. He glanced to the skeleton on the ground and then at the stasis chamber that it came from. The only word that came from his mouth was "Junpei…"

* * *

_"It would be best if you came with us. In a very short period of time, the government is expected to issue crackdowns on anyone found out to be tamers or chosen," a brown-haired man of unknown ethnicity told the group of six._

_ "But how can you sure we'll truly be safe and that we'll truly make a difference?" a blond girl of mixed European and Japanese ancestry asked. She, along with all the others in park where they were meeting, was an adult in her early twenties._

_ "While you are in stasis, my group will be searching the digital world for whatever remains of the partners that were formed from the spirits you used during your final battle."_

_ The black-haired man felt uneasy about it. His brown-haired friend, on the other hand, didn't. "Okay, all in favor of going with Gennai, raise your hands."_

_ The only person other than the boy with the long, black hair not to raise their hand was the blonde girl. Still, Gennai seemed trustworthy and apparently he worked with the teams of chosen that succeeded Takuya's team._

_ Still, the black-haired man wanted to support his friends, so he decided to go with them._

_ "Okay, we'll go. How long do you think this will take?" the brown-haired guy asked._

_ "Currently, Taichi Yagami is speaking before the government, negotiating on the rights of digimon. If he succeeds, then it will only be a little bit, but if he fails…"_

_ "It could be a while," the black-haired man said._

* * *

On the surface, an entire fleet of ships was approaching Koushiro's position. In the front of the lead ship was a brown-haired man with ridiculously long sideburns that most people mad fun of.

"Well, hello there, Koushiro, what a pleasant surprise. I would assume the children are down below."

Koushiro stared at the man with great determination. He had the knowledge that if he didn't defend this place, most likely the kids below would be captured, or worse. Still, this man had an army of Gizmon (Rookie and Champion forms), Bemmon and Snatchmon.

"Tentomon, are you ready?"

"Honestly, Koushiro, of course I'm ready!"

Koushiro pulled out his digivice and it burst with purple light.

"Tentomon warp digivolve to… HeraclesKabuterimon!"

The giant yellow beetle faced down the entire army. For some reason, Koushiro had a feeling that this would be their final battle.

* * *

In real life, in that fateful September, Kyle and his two friends watched the show in awe. "Man, they just had to end it at a giant cliffhanger, didn't they?" Marcus asked. "Oh well, there's always next week."

"So, what do you think of the revelations?" Kyle inquired of the group.

"There were six here when there were five in the video. How can they explain that?" Steven asked sarcastically.

"Maybe they started out with five," the brown-haired boy replied.

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking," Marcus agreed. "They probably started out with five and then added a sixth character, you know, like most seasons of the show."

"Still, it seems kind of contradictory," Steven said.

"So, you guys want to do anything else?" Marcus asked.

Kyle smiled as he shut off his computer and the group of friends left the room. "Maybe we should go to the arcade. Either that or we could go cramp Jacob's style by going to his friend's house."

The friends all laughed at that.

* * *

Unfortunately, a couple of days later, September 11 happened. That made it so that the entire week was filled with non-stop news reports on all the network stations (Kyle's family didn't have cable). Then a couple of days after that, Vikaralamon invaded Shinjuku. When Kyle walked into the room, he thought that the WTC news reports had finally stopped and that there was a monster movie or something, but after a couple seconds he realized it wasn't a movie. All the familiar news commentators were talking about it. Everything was pointing to it being real. A giant pig digimon really attacked Tokyo and a group called Digimon Tamers really fought against and defeated him.

Despite how horrific it all was, Kyle had a newfound enthusiasm inside of him. He was going to become a Digimon Tamer. He had the goggles, he had the cards. He just needed a partner.

He walked out of the living room with a giant smile on his face.

* * *

Back in the present, Jacob was trying to explain the game of tag to his partner digimon while the others conversed with Shibumi. "Okay, so basically, when you play, you touch the person gently and say 'Tag! Your it!'"

"Can I attack them?" Lucemon asked.

"No, you can't attack them. This is a game for fun. Anybody else want to play?" Unfortunately, he was with Kenta who didn't speak any English. The rest were conversing with Shibumi. Jacob couldn't understand a thing he was saying.

"I think your request is falling on deaf ears, bro," Steven said, walking up to his younger brother.

"So, what are they talking about, anyway?"

"They're talking about an ark coming out way to pick us up," Lucemon said.

"An ark? Like Noah's?" Jacob inquired.

"Somehow I doubt we'll be taking two of every digimon with us," Steven responded, scratching his chin. "Or seven of the sheep digimon. Dude, are there even that many digimon based on sheep?"

"Not that I know of," Lucemon replied.

* * *

They were right about the group talking with Mizuno, Janyu and Juri about sending the ark. "We can't have you in the digital world any longer," Janyu said. "It's far too dangerous."

"So far, we haven't even encountered any digimon other than some allies," Jenrya said.

"Yes, there are currently only a few hundred digimon left in the digital world," Shibumi stated. "Jenrya, have you found a safe place to release that program I gave you?"

"Not yet," the Chinese boy replied. "What exactly is it for?"

"It's intended as a solution for the Digital World's current population crisis," Mizuno responded. "I based it upon a concept from the TV show. It will automatically gather stray data from deleted digimon convert it into digi-eggs so that new digimon can emerge."

"A village of beginnings," Ruki said, thinking about it.

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Mizuno?" Yamaki asked, surprised at what the enigmatic man had planned.

"It's the hope of the digital world. Jenrya, I'll need you to release that program as soon as possible. In some ways, you should have released it as soon as you arrived in the digital world since you were thousands of kilometers away from TysiachaGlazkovmon and its forces."

Jenrya nodded. Janyu then spoke some more. "We will be sending the ark as soon as we can reconstruct it, so hold tight."

Little did any of them know that things weren't going to be so simple.

* * *

"So, you decided you would become a Tamer as soon as you found out digimon were real?" Hirokazu asked.

"Oh yeah, I thought it would be great. Actually, I wasn't planning on becoming a Tamer. I was hoping to be a chosen. You know, go to the digital world and save it from, like, Apocalymon or Daemon or whatever the third-season final boss was supposed to be," Kyle replied. "Come on, how awesome would that be?"

Hirokazu chuckled. "Man, you know what? When I found out Chumley over there was actually a tamer, I was so jealous of him that I tagged along to the digital world with Ruki and Jenrya that Kenta and I decided to tag along. Ruki especially didn't like it."

"You're not much of friends with her, aren't you?" Kyle inquired.

"Oh, no, she totally hates my guts."

"So, are her and Takato a… you know?"

"Uh… Wait, what are you implying?"

"Come on, I've seen how they look at each other. How they're always around each other."

Hirokazu rolled his eyes. "I would kill Takato if he started going out with her. Man, if they started going out, the two of them would probably die of heart-attacks after like a week."

Kyle laughed at that. "Yeah?"

"Man, now you're going to give me nightmares of them getting married and having kids that look like each other." Hirokazu shuddered at the thought. "Can we get back to the part about you becoming a tamer?"  
"Okay, the next morning, I got to school wearing goggles."

Unfortunately, Kyle's story was interrupted by a large digimon materializing around them. It was a twisted take on a familiar lion digimon. In addition, it also had an eyeball lodged in the middle of his chest, indicating its service to TysiachaGlazkovmon.

"Leomon?" Kyle asked, getting up and backing away from the digimon, who was inching towards him.

"MadLeomon, Champion Level, Virus Attribute. Oh crap, that can't be good. Guardromon, stop him."

At about that time, Impmon looked back from the group upon hearing all the commotion. "Leomon?"

Juri looked over in that direction, spotting the twisted resurrection of her partner and gasping in shock.

"Beast King Fallen Fist!" MadLeomon yelled, unleashing a blackened lion's face on Guardromon, who blocked to the best of his ability by putting his arms in front of his chest.

"Guardian Barrage!" the robot yelled, unleashing a rocket at the zombified lion.

"Don't worry about me," Hirokazu said, "I can take this guy!"

Kyle moved through the crowd to try and get away from MadLeomon. The other tamers would be able to take care of this guy easily. However, he was stopped by Shibumi.

"I understand what you're feeling, Kyle."

Kyle turned to the mysterious man. "Is there any way you can, like, departner us?"

Shibumi shook his head. "The most I can do is alter the parameters of your digivice so that it's connected to a different digimon. The partnership is actually located here," Mizuno pointed to his heart.

Kyle's eyes widened. "That's… ugh! Why me? Why did I, of all kids in the world, have to get partnered with that thing?"

"A partnership is caused partially by a mutual desire to help each other. It seems that since TysiachaGlazkovmon can create soldiers from data he has encountered, you must have come across one of them. Maybe one that emerged into the real world, perhaps?"

Kyle gritted his teeth. It was true.

He heard the call of a bird and looked above.

There was no way he was going to get out of this if he kept on denying that he was partnered with that thing. The large, brown, decaying bird up above was a part of it, waiting for him to leave the others.

Maybe there was a way to defeat TysiachaGlazkovmon. Or maybe there was a way to save him.

* * *

When Kyle first went to school after deciding to become a tamer, he decided to wear his goggles for some reason. While hanging out in the hallway in front of their lockers before class, his friends saw him. "Hey, Tai, nice goggles," Marcus said, jokingly, before laughing.

"Thanks," Kyle responded.

"No, seriously, they make you look like a dork," Steven said, "No offense, but you're getting some pretty crazy looks, man."

"Hey, I'm going to be a Tamer. I might as well look the part."

"Just cause Digimon actually exist doesn't actually mean that you're going to have a partner digimon, man," Marcus said, putting his arm around him.

"Hey, I can dream, can't I?"

"So, what do you want for a partner?"

Kyle thought about it for a second. "I don't know. I guess Veemon would be awesome. Either that or Elecmon. For some reason I like him."

"Elecmon, huh? Well, I like the thought of getting Gumdramon like Davis' kid. Funny, they have the same in-training form."

Kyle shrugged. "Yeah, that was crazy how in the first episode, the guy digivolved DemiVeemon into Gumdramon. I'm glad they didn't just make his partner the same as his dad's like the epilogue for 02 made it look like."

Marcus pulled his arm away. "So, what would you want, Steven?"

"Eh, it's not like I'm going to ever have a partner, so I won't even think about it."

"You won't think about it? Come on, you've got to have an idea!"

"Okay, BlackRenamon."

"BlackRenamon?" Kyle asked. "Is that even a canon digimon?"

"No, not really, but it's an idea. So, did you hear that Digimon Tamers got cancelled because of Vikaralamon?"

"Really, man? That sucks!" Marcus complained, putting his sunglasses on.

"Yeah, no kidding. I'm writing my own continuation where this new guy named Ronin with a BlackRenamon joins the team. Oh, and he's got a crazy dark past too. His parents died when he was like six, he finds out that his dad was actually the evil second emperor. Tanya will totally fall in love with him and they will take on the bad guys together. Oh yeah, and he'll have a sword! And he'll punch out digimon with his bare fists! Not to mention, he has a massive savings account and he's the lead singer and guitarist in a world famous band."

Marcus looked at him with an astounded face. "Man, what have you been reading?"

"Sound's kind of unlikely that he'd have a massive savings account if his parents are dead. Wait, what country is he from?" Kyle inquired.

"America. Why?"

"Well, in the show, this country has a ban on Digimon. That was part of the reason why Tanya moved to the states in the first place."

"He got out before the ban."

Just then the bell rang before Kyle could reply any more. From the sounds of it, the guy's character was starting to take over the plot.

* * *

A few months later, the D-Reaper invasion happened. Shortly after the giant blob hit Tokyo, Denver was evacuated and Kyle ended up in Colorado Springs, Steven and Jacob went to their grandparents somewhere in Connecticut and Marcus went to Wyoming (much to his dismay since it was almost winter and he hated the cold).

It was at about this time that Kyle's hope of getting a partner started to waver.

Eventually, after about a month, the D-Reaper was defeated and the brown-haired boy could go home along with his parents.

It was shortly after that while he was walking home from school, listening to some song on his CD-Player, when he spotted a dome of mist forming. He stared at the dome, mouth open in surprise before thinking about the implications of such a dome. He had read about it on the internet shortly after digimon were revealed to be real. So he ran into the Digital Field, hoping that there would be a rookie digimon that could become his partner. Instead, he found a viral version of Veedramon on the ground, seemingly dying. The brown-haired boy walked up to him slowly, moving around to check out the front of the digimon, who had data leaking from his scales. Then he noticed the eye in the center of his chest.

"What's wrong?"

The digimon looked at him, partially in fear and partially in anger.

"You need help! It looks like you're starting to disintegrate."

Then the digimon spoke in a raspy voice. "I can't survive in the human world since I'm separated from my core being." The digimon looked up at Kyle. "You're no threat, are you?"

Kyle looked at the digimon in shock. "What do you mean 'no threat?' I only want to help you."

The dragon gazed at the human in surprise. "Help me? If you help me, then I'll help you."

"Okay, I'll try. Maybe if I covered you in bandages or something. I could get some from home." Then the digimon started to fade some more.

"My time is over since I'm no longer connected."

"No! It can't be!" Just then, something started to glow in the air. The brown-haired boy grabbed hold of it to see that it was a digivice. Then he looked at where the digimon was to see that he was gone. "No…"

The digivice wasn't blank, though it didn't contain any stats on his partner, just showing the words 'Out of Range'. Kyle then thought of something. Maybe that meant that his partner was going to be reborn in the Digital World in the Village of Beginnings.

Then he smiled.

* * *

In the present, Kyle grimaced at the realization. The digimon that he wanted to help back then was one of TysiachaGlazkovmon's, meaning that he somehow ended up partnered with him. More digimon were starting to appear in the forest around him, all ready to get him. The Tamers started to digivolve their partners.

Kyle turned around to see the large, decaying bird from earlier, a digimon named Velgemon. He realized the enemy digimon would keep coming and that there was a chance he would die that very moment.

Then Velgemon spoke, or rather TysiachaGlazkovmon spoke through him since the bird wouldn't have had much as far as reasoning faculties to begin with.

"You may still prove useful," he said. "You can merge with me, help me become even more powerful than I am now."

"Promise you won't attack my friends," Kyle said.

"They pose a threat to me. As do the Sovereigns and every other digimon in this world. I won't make any promises."

"Get away from him!" Ruki yelled, digivice in hand. The bird flew up and then down, grabbing the Russian-American tamer with his talons and flying off, leaving the Tamers and their battle behind.

* * *

Hirokazu noticed Velgemon fly off with Kyle wiggling in its talons. _No!_ he thought. Then he pulled out another card from his deck. It turned out to be a blue card, generated upon realizing that his new friend was just taken away from the group.

He slid it. "Card Slash! Matrix Digivolution Activate!"

"Guardromon digivolve to… Andromon!" The new form had incomplete white armor around a humanoid body. "Well, it's good to be back in this form!" Then the cyborg started spinning his hand, creating a burst of lightning that struck MadLeomon on the eye in the center of his chest. "I'm sorry, old friend," he said as the lion was deleted.

Hirokazu glanced over at the hologram of Juri, who looked on in a knowing look. She knew it was necessary but it still pained her. As soon as she got home, she was most likely going to cry again. It was hard getting over the loss of her partner.

"It's decided," Takato spoke to Shibumi, Yamaki and Janyu for the group. "We're going after TysiachaGlazovmon to reclaim Kyle."

Shibumi nodded in understanding while Janyu gave a resigned look. He knew that there was no way to change their minds and it was obvious that the kid's life as well as the life of every know digimon in the digital world was in danger.

"This will be one of your toughest battles yet," Yamaki told the group. "Good luck."

"By the way, I'm going to take the liberty to get a hold of Steven, Jacob and Kyle's parents," Shibumi said both in English and Japanese. "I think they deserve to know where their children are."

"Just so you know, we live with our mom. It might not be a good idea to bring our dad into this since they divorced a few years ago and we moved across the country to get away from him," Steven told Mizuno.

"Duly noted. I'll keep that in mind. Kyle's parents aren't divorced, are they?"

Steven shook his head. "They're still happily married. Lucky."

"Oh good, that makes things simpler." Shibumi smiled. He had never gotten married or been in a relationship himself, so he felt somewhat envious whenever he heard of people married happily. Then again, he was basically married to his job anyway. "Well, I guess I'll be signing out. It's getting pretty late."

The holograms disappeared. They were ready for whatever they had to go up against next. It was obvious that this TysiachaGlazkovmon was a threat that needed to be taken care of, whether they liked it or not.

* * *

Next Chapter: Army of Shadows

A/N: Sorry if it seems like Kyle's taking over the plot. He won't even have a role for the next few chapters and his role in the defeat of TysiachaGlazkovmon's pretty limited (partially because: how are you going to defeat your own partner, anyway? Actually, he'll make things worse). The next chapter will focus more on the other tamers.

Note about Steven's fic: I don't mean this as a personal attack against everyone who uses BlackRenamon (or DarkRenamon). Basically, all I'm pointing out is that it seems like a lot of fics I've encountered tend to execute such a digimon badly (such as a certain misrated M-Rated one with a Gary Stu that hijacks the plot and makes Ruki fall for him. Oh, and he has a sword). Notable exceptions would be Dimensions (which has a girl partnered with DarkRenamon), and Tamers Requiem (BlackRenamon appears in Book 5 and isn't partnered. Basically, she's used to show the effects of digisoul corrupted by Masaru drinking from the Dark Ocean). I'm sure you could tell me more, but don't worry about it. I did consult a Mary Sue litmus test for ideas, though. Really, it's all about character balance (Which, I admittedly can have a problem with).

The next chapter will have more than enough Rukato to make up for the lack of it in this chapter and the last. Sorry if that's all you read this fic for. Also, a couple of chapters after that will reveal the caller's identity completely, even if you could guess who he was from this chapter. Come on, guess.


	6. The Advancing Armies

Chapter 6: The Advancing Armies

* * *

Disclaimer: I definitely don't own Digimon. Just Steven, Jacob, Kyle, TysiachaGlazkovmon and whatever other OCs show up.

* * *

Shibumi was shutting everything down for the night. True, there was the night watch for any sort of disturbances along the barriers between the worlds; he didn't feel very comfortable leaving them behind. That and he was a bit of an insomniac anyway. It was something he had had to deal with since his college days at Palo Alto and it irked him to no end.

Then again, he did have plenty of sleep while he was in a coma.

He yawned, walking out of the building. He stopped at a street vendor that was somehow open at the time to grab something quick to eat. When he pulled out his change, he pulled out the memory stick that he received from Juri earlier.

He realized that he forgot to send whatever message was on the thing to the tamers.

Mizuno knew what he had to do. He rushed back to Hypnos to open the file. It was quite the massive piece of information and he couldn't open it using Hypnos' systems, though he could use the digivices since they use the same holographic file format. That was when he thought of something. He pulled his laptop out of its case and connected it to the mainframe. Then he transferred his digivice software from the laptop to the mainframe.

The next thing he did was use the digivice software to open the file.

Unfortunately, the system still didn't have the processing power to open such media.

Shibumi realized he would have to create an artificial digivice for this. As it was, all the technology inside the little devices was digital from the buttons to the holographic projectors.

His thoughts went back in time as he worked on his next little assignment. It was obvious he wasn't going to sleep that night.

"_So, what now?" the younger Mizuno asked his roommate as the two wandered back to their dorm. His hair was shorter and he was wearing a forward facing baseball cap. It was obviously late fall since the two friends were wearing heavy jackets._

"_I was thinking of going for a little swim before heading off to bed. There's a huge test in the morning and I've done all the studying I can stand." His friend wasn't a particularly tall man. They were actually about the same height. The other man had short, curly black hair and a five-o-clock shadow since he hadn't shaved since that morning._

"_Antonio, you need to take this seriously."_

"_Hey, why take it seriously when I can have a little fun. There are things to do, women to meet, and you know I love the women."_

_Mizuno rolled his eyes at the thought. Antonio was hopeless with the opposite sex even though he thought they fought over him. He's only had one relationship that lasted past the second date._

_When the two friends were about to walk into the dorm building, they heard something in the distance. "What is that noise?" Antonio asked._

_Mizuno wondered the same thing. When they arrived at the building, they were surprised to find a fog covering the building. "I'll go check the side of the building, you go in to see if there's anyone inside!" the Chilean student said, running into the field while Mizuno ran into the building. He found Daisy in a traumatized state in the computer room, having smashed a number of computer monitors._

_Antonio found a large, lumbering creature looking for a meal. The man ran as quickly as he could from the blue dragon, thankfully leading him to something other than him to eat._

* * *

Preparing for the coming battle was easy. Basically, the kids got together and worked with their card decks. The ones that couldn't biomerge especially needed to do so, since the ones that wouldn't be using cards anyway. The plan was to have the five Megas lead while Kenta, MarineAngemon, Hirokazu, Andromon, Jacob, Lucemon, Steven and Ryudamon followed them. Since Lopmon and Culumon couldn't evolve, they would stay hidden on the sidelines, out of the battle.

Once everything was set up and planned, the group would move out, ready to take on whatever this giant evil digimon threw at them.

"So, are you ready?" Takato asked Ruki, who was finishing with her cards.

"Sure, gogglehead. Are you?"

"Definitely." Takato smiled. "I'm not sure what we're going to face. For all we know, there's an army of Megas waiting for us. I just wanted to… I don't know. I don't want to think of what would happen if I lost one of my friends."

"Don't worry, gogglehead, you're not going to lose me. It's nice that you're concerned, but don't worry about it. Why don't you go check on brainiac or Mr. Perfect instead?"

"I already talked to Ryo and Jenrya."

Ruki turned around instantly, only slightly peeved. "So, how are we doing this?"

"Well, first, we're going to fly there using SaintGalgomon and then as soon as we spot the army, we'll land."

The red-head decided to pull out her digivice. "You have any idea where TysiachaGlazkovmon will end up putting Kyle?"

Takato didn't have a clue.

Ruki, on the other hand decided to bring up the holographic projection of TysiachaGlazkovmon. She then zoomed in past the outer group of eyes and found an eye that was far bigger than the rest. In it was Kyle's digivice signal. "He's in the biggest eye."

"Can you show what's in it?"

"Let's see…" She entered into the eye and found two pillars with Kyle embedded into the wall. "I wonder what that thing is planning."

"Maybe it wants to biomerge?" Takato suggested.

"Oh please, it's already a Mega."

"Well, what if upon biomerging with a Mega you could… I don't know, achieve a higher state like a mode change or something."

Ruki thought about it for a second. "You have a point there. If they merged, what would it become?" The red-head looked at the evil digimon some more. "What are these two pillars?" she asked herself in a whisper. One of the pillars had a glowing blue sphere in it, the Digi-core, while the other one didn't. She zoomed in on the second pillar and found a second digi-core. It turned out that the pillar was far too tough to destroy outright, far tougher than any other part of the enemy digimon. She checked her digimon analyzer some more and found something interesting.

_"TysiachaGlazkovmon has a unique feature that allows it, in case of sure destruction, to upload its mind into a replica of its Rookie Form and shoot the casing the new form is in off to parts unknown."_

"So even if we defeated it, it wouldn't be defeated. Great!"

"What are you thinking?"

"We're going to have to send a team inside TysiachaGlazkovmon's core eye to destroy both the digi-core and the rookie form while rescuing Kyle. Any ideas?"

"We should bring this up to the rest of the team."

* * *

A few minutes later, the team was gathered. Takato and Ruki explained everything to them and told them about their plan.

"I'll go," Steven said, raising his hand.

"You? But you don't even have a partner digimon," Ruki retorted.

"Yeah, well, my best friend's in there!"

"I'll go," Hirokazu said. "It'll give Andromon a chance to strut his stuff. Maybe Kenta can float us all in and, bam! TysiachaGlazkovmon is defeated!"

Ruki gave the brown-haired boy a sharp glare. "Okay, any better ideas?" she asked in both English and Japanese.

Jenrya thought about it for a second. "Maybe we can have Jacob and Lucemon go with them."

"Are you kidding me? I'm not letting my younger brother get in any more danger!" Steven exclaimed.

"Hey, don't worry, I'll be fine," Jacob said in his usual cheery, slightly high-pitched voice.

"I'm more than a match for that giant eyeball," Lucemon stated blankly. "Besides, since when did you have a partner?"

Steven looked at Ryudamon and then at his digivice-less belt. "You got a point there."

Renamon was the one to speak next. "Perhaps I could, as Sakuyamon, escort the landing party while shielded."

"That sounds like a good idea to me," Ruki said. "Just keep in mind that that thing can produce replicas of its lower forms like with Velgemon earlier. You might find something unpleasant inside the core eye, like a Duskmon or something."

"Got it!" the team exclaimed.

"Now let's get going." Takato noticed Steven's hand up and pointed at him. He jabbered something in English and Ruki translated.

"He has to go to the bathroom first."

* * *

Really, what Steven was doing was having a private conversation with his brother. The heavier boy and his partner came along with Ryudamon. They reached the end of a clearing, and Steven started to speak. "Okay, bro, what's gotten into you?"

"I just think that I should help out. Kyle's been kidnapped."

"Yeah, I can see that. It's just… come on, you're too young for this."

Jacob looked at his older brother in disbelief. "Too young? I'm the same age the Japanese Tamers were when they started."

"Yeah, but they didn't go up against a giant Mega-level eyeball right away! You have to ease into this."

"Come on, you don't even have a partner yet!"

Steven glared at his younger brother even more. "Yeah, so! I just don't want to be the one who comes home to tell mom that you're dead, okay?"

"Hey, I'm not going to be the one that's dead!" with that, the younger boy tackled his older brother, tired of being treated the way he was treated simply because he was younger.

The two digimon just watched. "So, should we help them?" Ryudamon asked.

"Nah, they can just fight to the death. It'll be entertaining," Lucemon replied jokingly.

"Fight to the death? I've gotta do something!" the yellow-furred dragon moved forward to where the two kids were rolling around on the grass, trying to punch each other. Lucemon just stood there in surprise at Ryudamon's gullibility.

"I was just kidding. Great, can't he tell a joke when he sees one? It's not like they could actually kill each other anyway."

Ryudamon got in between the two boys and pushed them apart despite their superior height. "Okay, back off! Nobody's killing anybody today! We've got an entire army to deal with so you can't be doing this!"

"Killing? Come one, we do this all the time!" Steven exclaimed. His clothes were somewhat tattered and marked with grass stains.

"Nothing like this. We do wrestle a lot, though. He always wins," Jacob added. His clothes looked even worse than his brother's.

"Hey, I was just trying to… oh forget it. I was just scared that you were going to do something stupid," the small beast responded.

"Yeah, thanks. Don't worry about it, though," the red-head said with a smile.

"It's just… I don't know. I saw a lot of fighting during the D-Reaper war and… I just don't want to see anybody get hurt again."

"You fought during all that, huh?"

"Yeah, well, I was in my Mega form at the time, but… I don't really want to talk about it."

"If you ever want to, just say something to me," Steven responded. "Don't worry about it. We've all had tough times."

"Yeah, like when our dad seriously went off the deep end and ch-" Steven interrupted his brother.

"Wait, how'd you know about that?"

"I asked mom a few months ago. I already knew about all the other stuff he did."

Steven felt like he failed at something. He had been attempting to shield his brother from all that all this time, but the kid found out anyway. The red-head just took a deep breath and exhaled. "Yeah, that's not really something you talk about to everyone you meet."

"I know. It's just… It just came out, okay?"

Ryudamon, though, was ecstatic. "Well, good thing you're not trying to kill each other anymore."

"Yeah, thanks for getting in between us," Steven said.

"No problem!" Just then, a white glow appeared in the air and Steven grabbed it. It was a grey and orange digivice. "Well, what do you know? We're partners after all!"

"That's awesome. You can help out now!" Jacob exclaimed.

"Partners! Man, and I didn't even need to go to the human world to get one!" Ryudamon shouted happily.

"Oh, but you're totally coming home with me after this, okay?" Steven warned his partner.

"Sure thing. It's not like I have anything left here in the digital world!"

Just then, Hirokazu and Kenta came to check on them since they were taking a really long time. "Hey, you guys alright?"

Steven walked over to the two guys and answered. "Oh, yeah, just had a little tussle."

Then they heard something rustle in the distance. "Guardromon, can you detect anything?" Hirokazu asked the rust-colored robot.

"Afirmative. A large number of digital life-forms are approaching."

"A large number?" Kenta asked, "How many?"

"I am estimating about 150 digimon are headed this way. I can't detect the levels; however, I know for sure that it's a large mix of Champion and Ultimate digimon."

For whatever reason, whatever the digimon say is usually translated automatically for any of the tamers, no matter what language they spoke. Hearing this, Steven grabbed hold of his digivice. "Are you ready, Ryudamon?"

"Ready for anything," the yellow dragon replied.

"Hear that, Lucemon?" Jacob asked.

The angel smiled. "That I have."

* * *

Ryo was busy scanning the area for potential enemy digimon while the others prepared to leave. He didn't know what to think anymore since now both Kenta and Jenrya knew his secret. Then again, maybe he needed someone to know.

He could almost relate to Kyle's predicament, although this was hopefully the only time that they ever had to fight against TysiachaGlazkovmon whereas he had to face each of Milleniummon's numerous forms.

"So, how has life been?" Monodramon asked his partner. He apparently didn't have the energy to stay as Cyberdramon yet. That was probably a good thing at the moment, since the large cross between dragon and machine was quite the handful. Ryo actually imagined staying in the digital world for awhile if his partner stayed at that stage again.

"Not too bad. It's basically been nice and boring, which was what I need after everything was so crazy for so long."

Monodramon nodded in agreement. "You did miss me, right?"

"Of course. Life wasn't the same without you." Ryo smiled at his partner who was so much different in this form than in his Ultimate form.

Just then, the legendary tamer glanced at his D-Arc, noticing an advancing army of digimon reformed by TysiachaGlazkovmon.

He had to warn the others.

* * *

Jenrya walked into the clearing where Takato and Ruki were when Ryo ran in. "There's an entire army approaching," the Legendary Tamer told the group.

"We know," Ruki said. "Where are the others? Don't tell me Steven's still using the bathroom."

"I doubt it," Jenrya replied. "In fact, I think the whole thing was a ruse to talk to his brother."

"Figures."

The leaves started to rustle. It seemed that the first of the enemy digimon were there, ready for the slaughter. The four tamers that could reach the Mega Level got ready.

"Biomerge Activate!"

"Guilmon biomerge to… Dukemon!"

"Renamon biomerge to… Sakuyamon!"

"Monodramon biomerge to… Justimon!"

"Terriermon biomerge to… SaintGalgomon!"

The four megas struck the champion level digimon that made it through the trees. Thankfully, it only seemed like there were a few of them, however, they had to be ready.

"Whoa," Takato reacted once the biomerge completed. The data sphere was there, but there was more. There was a radar screen as well as a screen that showed data on whatever digimon they came across.

"Yeah, this is different. Maybe getting a digivice upgrade wasn't such a bad idea," Ruki commented from inside Sakuyamon.

"Too bad I can't see it, Takato," Guilmon remarked.

"Yeah, no kidding! You guys get all the cool stuff!" Terriermon said as SaintGalgomon punched through a couple of Ogremon.

"So, should we go find the others and make sure they're okay?" Ryo asked as Justimon deleted a Tyrannomon.

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Takato said while Dukemon sliced through a few Mechanorimon.

The group heard gunshots as Beelzemon ran in with Culumon and Lopmon hanging onto his shoulders for dear life. "Don't go without us, bub!" the leather-wearing digimon yelled out as he followed the others.

"Don't worry, we weren't going to leave you behind," Sakuyamon assured the three digimon.

Takato smiled at his friend.

* * *

The five megas, one rookie and one in-training made it into the clearing where the others were busy battling it out with a massive army. On the tamers' side was a quadruped reptile digimon with black armor that Takato didn't recognize, pounding through a series of Woodmon. He checked his digimon analyzer and got a name: Ginryumon, the evolved form of Ryudamon.

_So they are partnered?_ Takato also noticed Lucemon deleting large amounts of enemies with his Grand Cross attack despite being a Rookie. After a few minutes, the number of enemies started to diminish greatly. Shortly after that, the last of the enemy digimon were deleted.

"That was tough," Takato commented upon getting out of his biomerged form. The next thing he noticed was Jacob walking up to him and saying something.

"Arigato, Takato."

"You're welcome." The kid obviously didn't know much Japanese but he spoke it with a pretty good accent considering how it seemed that most Americans that Takato met tended not to.

"Wow, Takato, that was a hard battle," Guilmon told his partner.

"Yeah, I'd rather not fight a mass of digimon that big again," the tamer replied.

"No kidding," Impmon said.

* * *

Elsewhere in the digital world, Daemon was keeping watch from atop the monument where the Sovereigns had their temporary base. Shoutmon walked up beside him. "So, where'd you think Ryudamon went?"

"He probably went with the Tamers. Who knows, he might already have a partner."

"Wow, here I was hoping we'd get to go to the human world together," the red dragon collapsed onto the ground. "When do we get to leave, anyway?"

"As soon as all the other Rookies and small Champions arrive."

Shoutmon was obviously impatient. "Man, I hope they all come soon."

The duo was silent for a few seconds before Daemon sensed something and stood up. "Oh no, not now."

"What is it?" the small dragon asked.

"An army approaches. We need to get you to the gates immediately before they arrive. Now!"

Shoutmon followed the large, robed digimon into the chambers where the rulers of the digital world had their gateway. The four sovereigns either stood or hovered around.

"You can sense the army too," Qinglongmon stated.

"There are many of them and only a few hundred of us," Daemon said. "This may truly be our last stand."

"Let's hope it isn't," Baihumon told the group.

Shoutmon walked over to the area where all the other Rookies and small Champions arrived. He noticed a Gaomon and a Dobermon who were standing together nearby. He also spotted a Keramon and a Plotmon. Really, there were so many that were gathered together, he couldn't keep track of all of them.

It was time.

The air around the four sovereigns started to glow as a massive, blue data-stream formed around the rookies.

"Good luck. Find a good Tamer, Shoutmon," was the last thing the small dragon heard his friend Daemon say before the digimon was sucked up into the stream that was sending all the Rookies to various parts of the Human World.

The next thing the small dragon knew was that he was flying through a vortex of information. There were various lines and gears along the area in between the human and digital worlds. He noticed the Gaomon and Dobermon go to one area and the Plotmon to another. The Keramon went somewhere else.

Then Shoutmon flew into a hole of light.

He found himself bursting into a grassy field in the middle of fog. A digital field.

Just then, a human figure walked into the field. He had sandy blond hair and blue eyes and was wearing what looked like a Physical Education uniform.

The boy held out his hand and smiled. "My name is Andrew. You must be a Digimon."

Shoutmon smiled in joy. "Yep, Shoutmon's the name!"

They were going to be a good team. He could tell, since the next minute a blue digivice appeared in the air with a red ring around the middle and the boy grabbed it.

"Good to meet you. Now to get you out of here without the coaches figuring out." The twelve-year-old checked out the digivice's help features.

"So, where are we?"

"North Las Vegas, Nevada. Know anything about geography?"

Shoutmon shrugged. "Not a thing. You'll have to show me what it is."

"Alright, I'll do that. I hope you don't mind this. Dedigivolution activate!"

Upon hearing those words, Shoutmon shrunk to his in-training form of Gigimon. He wasn't happy and complained as the blond boy picked him up. "I'm going to get you for this!"

Andrew just laughed at the small digimon.

* * *

In Germany, an obese thirteen-year-old with brown hair was busy trying to hack into government computers when all the sudden his screen started to glow. Then it started to steam.

The next minute, a blue alien-like digimon came out, landing on him.

"Wunderbar…" the boy said in sarcasm.

"Ich heisse Keramon! Wie heist du?"

"Gunther. Was machst du in meinem zimmer?" He asked: What are you doing in my room?

* * *

Somewhere in California, the two dogs, Dobermon and Gaomon emerged. It would be a few months before they met the two brothers that would become their tamers and a few more months before they officially became partner digimon.

For now, it was just a chance to get away from the chaos that is the Digital World.

Marcus Deveraux was busy doing work as a student aide when the courtyard in his school started to fog up. It had been a couple days since he had last seen his friends Kyle and Steven walk into a portal to the digital world. Since then, things had been frantic. He really wanted those three to come back safe.

The African-American teenager entered into the digital field, knowing full well what it was and hoping that if the digimon inside was hostile, that he could at least defeat it somehow. The digimon he found inside was a Goblimon, looking straight at him.

The Goblimon only said a single word: "Tamer!"

Maybe staying in the real world wasn't so bad after all.

* * *

The whole world over, over a hundred children and teenagers received partners that day. The mass amount of digimon coming over into the human world didn't go unnoticed by any of the organizations that were there. "Shibumi! Come see this," Reika exclaimed.

Megumi examined the reading. "There really are a lot of digimon emerging. Beijing, San Fransisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, Denver. There are digimon all over the place!"

As soon as Shibumi walked in, he asked the duo, "What about here in Tokyo?"

"Three signs, all in Koto. A Psychemon, a Dracmon and an Opossummon."

That wasn't as many as he expected. Then again, if this threat were to come to the real world, they would need help in more areas than just Tokyo.

Shibumi walked back to his computer and brought up his Tamer Tracker program. He saw a far longer list of names.

"Call Yamaki immediately!"

* * *

Elsewhere, in Odaiba, Kentaro Takaishi was riding up an elevator along with his partner, Impmon and his guardian. The thirteen-year-old was having a bit of a hard time, since he realized that his cover, and that of the three others, was probably blown.

"That was a bad idea," he said to his elevator companion. The man had long black hair tied up in a ponytail as well as blue eyes. He also looked to be in his early twenties.

"What was? Giving the girl the hologram that Jacob McCloskey gave us before we came here?"

Kentaro paused for a couple seconds before speaking again. "She saw us. Specifically she saw me. For all we know, she recognized us from the TV show based on our adventures that aired in this world."

"That is doubtful," the man said. "For her to recognize who you are, the art style of the TV Show would have to be somewhat realistic. However, it looked quite super deformed."

"This is so weird. I mean, how could we have a TV show based on our adventures."

"At least it was accurate. There were a number of things changed when our adventures were adapted into a show which we found out about after the Unification. For instance, we each had a Double Spirit Evolution whereas in the show, only Takuya and I had ones. Also, EmperorGreymon and MagnaGarurumon didn't appear until…"

"I read Junpei's list of changes." Ironically, the one change both Junpei and Izumi were most peeved about was how in the show Izumi lost against a Woodmon she easily defeated in real life.

The elevator stopped and the trio walked out. All the sudden, the man heard some beeping from the handheld device he had in his pockets. The device: a small, portable computer of a model that wouldn't appear for another couple of decades. "Hmm, it seems that the sovereigns have finally sent their backup army of digimon to this world to find partners."

Kentaro raised an eyebrow. "And _how_ did you find that out?"

"One of the e-mails that included an attachment I sent to Shibumi contained a spyware program that allows me to keep tabs on Hypnos."

The blond boy just continued walking until he reached the apartment. As he opened the door, he said: "Man, Koji, you always have a plan, don't you?"

The black-haired Chosen smiled at him as he walked into the small living quarters.

* * *

On their way to defeat TysiachaGlazkovmon, Takato spoke with Ruki about a few things. They didn't really have any privacy and they were in their Mega forms so that they could reach the digital abomination quicker.

Takato was the one who started the conversation. "So, what do you think our parents are thinking right now?"

Ruki's eyes narrowed. "I don't really know and I don't really care."

Takato was surprised. "Hey, I thought you had a better relationship with your mom, now."

"I do, but sometimes I just have to get away. Haven't you ever had that feeling?"

Takato never really thought about it, but it was true. Of course, most of the time, getting away doesn't involve having to rescue a random kid from another country. Then again, the tamers have gotten into pretty strange situations.

"So, what do you think of the new guys?"

"They're amateurs but so were we. They'll get better," Ruki replied. "I just hope they don't have to go through everything we went through, like Beelzemon or the D-Reaper."

"Yeah, that was pretty rough. I'm pretty sure that they can take on whatever comes out of the digital world."

Ruki thought about that. "I hope so. I mean, they won't be able to reach Mega in the real world like we can."

"Yeah, the only way we managed to reach this level is because of Dobermon. I wonder what happened to Alice."

Ruki shrugged. "All I heard from Dr. McCoy was that she was in a coma."

"That's rough."

"No kidding. What bugs me the most, though, is that she was there with Dobermon. How can you possibly explain that?"

Jenrya spoke next. "Okay, we've only got a few kilometers more to go."

"Got it," Ruki affirmed.

"So, what do you want to do when we get home?" Takato asked the girl.

"Beats me. I definitely don't want to go back to school. Just think, only a month and we're in Junior High!"

"No kidding. I'm not looking forward to that. Wait, what school are you going to?"

"Shinjuku Private Junior High. Why?"

"Oh, I'm just going to the public one, that's all." _Darn!_ Takato spoke before saying the next line. "You want to go to a movie or something?"

Ruki looked over to him. "Wait, you want to go on a date?"

"No! No, I just want to hang out a little bit. You know, as friends." _Then again, come to think of it, she is kind of attractive…_

"Takato, I feel weird," Guilmon said. Apparently since they were biomerged, the dinosaur felt the effects of Takato's blush.

"Don't worry, boy, it's probably just you detecting TysiachaGlazkovmon."

Then the duo flew over the ridge to see…

"What the…" It turned out that the entire area they were heading into, a small valley that couldn't possibly be more than a kilometer across was inhabited by the digital abomination's forces. And in the center was the abomination itself, a giant eye surrounded by a multitude of smaller ones.

The final battle has begun.

* * *

Kyle Dibenko woke up attached to a wall and face to face with one of the five Duskmon that TysiachaGlazkovmon formed to guard his kernel. This Duskmon in particular was the digital abomination's spokesman. "Hello, Tamer."

"What? What am I doing here?"

The Duskmon chuckled a bit. "Well, Tamer, I was originally going to kill you, however I've decided against it. You see, you may still prove useful."

Duskmon stepped aside and a screen made of organic matter appeared followed by a second. On the first, a digimon that was obviously Daemon with a small assortment of Megas fighting an army of Champion and Ultimate-level digimon. On the second, the Tamers of Shinjuku finally arrived and proceeded to fight against the various Champion and Ultimate-level digimon in the army.

"You can only create digimon of levels lower than yours," Kyle deduced.

"Quite right, Tamer. Now, I have a theory about our partnership. What if we were to do what the other humans do and merge together?"

"That would be interesting, but I'm not going to do it. Why are you trying to destroy all the other digimon in the digital world anyway? What's in it for you?"

"Oh, what do you know? A human request. You want a reason? Well, mine is quite simple. They're all threats to my existence and I won't stop until these threats are removed."

"Didn't you realize that if you didn't attack them or do anything to them, they'd all just leave you alone?"

"No, they won't. The law of the digital world is the survival of the fittest. Digimon hunt each other."

"It doesn't have to be that way. In case you can't tell, all the other digimon that you are fighting against are no longer attacking each other and loading their data. The smaller numbers after the D-Reaper must have changed things. Even a flipping Daemon is on the good guys' side now!"

The enemy digimon responded by clawing across Kyle's chest, causing the brown-haired boy to scream out in agony.

"You have to feel my pain, Kyle Dibenko! Feel my pain and merge with me! Say the words that you stupid humans say whenever you merge with Digimon. Biomerge activate!"

Kyle was almost delusional from the pain. "Biomerge activate…"

His grey and purple digivice shined with a dark glow.

* * *

Next Chapter: The Message

A/N: Please review. I know plenty of people have been reading this story but only a couple have bothered to leave a comment. Remember, bad reviews are better than no reviews.

Everything's starting to come together now. However, there are people watching to make sure that everything stays in place. At the same time, the Tamers will have to face.

Hopefully the revelation as to who the caller is makes sense as well as what little you know of his version of the events in Frontier (let's face it, Izumi losing to Woodmon was a pretty low spot for the series, though not as bad as the whole Royal Knights arc or the lack of balance for the team).

You'll hopefully see what future!Jacob's message is next chapter as well as what else was different for Koji and his team. By the way, the Frontier bunch isn't dead. He'll rescue them.

I'm actually working out plans for a series of fics. The next one in the series takes place two years after this one. You'll find out what it's about in the epilogue.


	7. The Message

Chapter 7: The Message

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters except for Kyle, Steve, Jacob, Marcus, TysiachaGlazkovmon, NecroShoutmon and RuinSphinxmon. Nope, I don't even own myself. Lack of money does that to you.

Replies to anonymous reviews: digifrontier: I kind of left Junpei and Izumi's relationship vague on purpose. Let's just say, there's a specific couple in Frontier I prefer and that's all I'll say. It doesn't really play into this specific story, however the sequel may end up having something to do with this.

* * *

A group of people in lab coats rushed hurriedly around a room filled to the brim with holographic computer terminals displaying three-dimensional graphics. The group didn't necessarily consist of scientists, though some of them were. Their reason for working as thoroughly as possible was that there was something very wrong in the time stream. In between the time of the D-Reaper and the Unification, before the appearance of the Second Emperor, the Digital World is completely inaccessible. Now, after the Unification, the Chosen children and Taichi Yagami's team of tamers have to face RuinSphinxmon. The effects of the enemy digimon's armies have a catastrophic effect on the groups and they ultimately lose the battles against Dagomon and the Second Emperor.

Time travel is a massive pain.

"We're going to have to find a way to separate Kyle Dibenko from RuinSphinxmon and de-partner them," a large, lumbering man in his late thirties with a serious receding hairline barked out to the group, trying to usher them.

"That's going to take some time," a red-haired Japanese woman around the same age told him.

"We don't have time!" he said. The only reason they survived the shift in the time stream was because the labs they were in were on a different plain from either the human world or the digital world.

"I might have a lock on Kyle. I'm not sure how long this will take in the past," a brown-haired man said.

Then a woman with wavy black hair spoke. "Will we have to send my daughter's team in?"

"No, we shouldn't. Don't worry about it. Tanya's team isn't going anywhere." The tall man hoped.

Now they just had to wait. Altering history was a complex task and Jacob McCloskey knew that well. It was his life's work after his brother and friend died against that monstrosity.

* * *

Something was obviously wrong. The eyes surrounding TysiachaGlazkovmon's kernel spun rapidly and started glowing darkly before combining with the core eye. The eye then collapsed into a humanoid figure with a black, skeletal frame, glowing red eyes, a golden headdress and the garb of a pharaoh. Only this garb was shoddy and decayed, the headdress had holes in it with flaked off gold and the staff the pharaoh was holding was mangled. The purple jewel on the end glowed eerily.

Strangely enough, the armies were still there and the team was still fighting them.

"Okay, what the heck is that?" Steven asked from behind Ginryumon.

Ruki looked at the digimon analyzer from inside Sakuyamon. "RuinSphinxmon, Tier II Mega, Variable Attribute. His attacks include Book of the Dead, Pharaoh's Wrath and Mass Exode. What the heck does this mean by Tier II Mega?"

"Honestly, who cares? Let's just defeat this thing before it does something!" Hirokazu yelled out. Ruki just wanted to slap him.

"I agree," Jenrya said from within SaintGalgomon. "We need to take action, now!"

"Mega Barrage!" SaintGalgomon yelled out, open the pair of cannons on his shoulders and launching a large number of missles.

"Final Elysium!" Dukemon called, creating a burst of energy from his shield.

RuinSphinxmon seemingly disappeared from view just as the energy blasts reached the spot where he was, the blasts destroying parts of the army behind it. Then the digimon appeared just behind Dukemon.

"Such as threat as you no longer deserves to exist," the enemy digimon stated, swinging his staff. RuinSphinxmon's staff met Sakuyamon's and the energy discharge caused everyone around them to be forced away from the center of the strike.

All this was happening while the rest of the team fought the army of digimon that was still all around them.

One of them in particular, Steven, realized he was going to have to do something major to help his partner. He remembered some of the instructions that Hirokazu gave him about digivolving to the Ultimate level, how he needed to conjure up the blue card using his desire to help his friends, his partner and his brother. He pulled out the card he was going to use, a card that was otherwise useless in this situation, and hoped.

The next thing he did was slash it. "Card Slash! Matrix Digivolution!"

**MATRIX DIGIVOLUTION_**

"Ginryumon digivolve to… Hisyarumon!"

Steven looked over the new form of the digimon. He was now a long, Chinese-style dragon with a red belly and an ivory crest on his head. The digimon had two small legs in the back of his long body and two arms holding spheres, one orange, one blue.

"Go get them!" the red-head shouted.

"Legendary Dragon Blade!" The dragon used one of his attacks, transforming himself into a giant blade and attacked a large number of Champion-level digimon. As Ginryumon, he could only take on one at a time, but now he could as many as he needed to get out of the way.

Lucemon was still having an easy time against Champions and Ultimates alike. The power level of such a digimon was ridiculous. Jacob wondered if he would ever _need_ to digivolve him.

Hirokazu saw the troubles of the core five and wished he could help them, but he realized that with only Andromon, he couldn't. Instead, the tall cyborg was busy fighting against a pair of Ultimate-levels.

Kenta really wished he could do more with MarineAngemon. For a Mega, the guy was more of a support digimon than a fighter and the battle showed. He was barely holding his own against the Ultimates that were around, although the Champions were a piece of cake. Maybe the little digimon needed some extra training once they got back to the real world.

Unfortunately, the small fairy just got hurt by a viral MetalGreymon's attack head on. "MarineAngemon!" the boy called out, seeing the digimon fall to the ground. Kenta picked him up, despite the flickering data of the small Mega.

Hirokazu looked at Kenta just as the MetalGreymon was opening his chest up to unleash another pair of missiles. "Kenta, watch out!"

Luckily, Lucemon unleashed a grand cross on the dinosaur as he was about to attack, saving Kenta and MarineAngemon.

_We have to do something more than this._

"Let's do this together, MarineAngemon," the bespectacled boy told his partner, getting a couple of unintelligible sounds from the digimon in agreement.

The light of digivolution that followed affirmed their partnership.

**BIOMERGE DIGIVOLUTION_**

Kenta held out his digivice and yelled out, "Biomerge Activate!" Light and fractal code surrounded him and his partner as the two merged together.

"…Aegisdramon!"

"Aegisdramon…" Hirokazu said in surprise. Kenta and MarineAngemon's new form was a yellow-armored sea creature with numerous cannons, a pair of yellow ones from his back, one from each of its large, mechanical arms, and a pair of purple ones on its shoulders. The digimon also had a blue thunderbolt on the tip of its head and what looked like blue hair just below its neck.

The cyborg sea-creature floated above the armies in front of him and unleashed a volley of missiles on the armies in front of them, decimating their numbers to the point of being able to manage whatever could come up against them.

"Aegisdramon, Tier II Mega, Cyborg Digimon, Vaccine Attribute. Dang, that's a powerful digimon," Steven commented after reading the info from his digivice.

RuinSphinxmon noticed this. Because of Kenta's biomerge, he realized he had to stop toying with the Tamers and so he moved away from the now-six megas that he was facing. This was when he unleashed his technique: "Book of the Dead!"

"Oh no, he's doing something big," Takato said. "Final Elysium!"

"Mega Barrage!"

"Izuna!" Sakuyamon yelled, unleashing a squadron of kitsune from her belt.

"Justice Burst!" Justimon yelled, transforming his arm into a cannon, unleashing a blast of energy from it.

"Double Impact!" Beelzemon yelled, shooting at RuinSphinxmon with his pistols.

"Shine Breaker!" Aegisdramon yelled, unleashing a volley of missiles.

* * *

Shibumi was monitoring the battle from Hypnos as Yamaki walked into the building. The middle-aged Monster Maker was drinking large amounts of coffee to keep awake. The clock said 3AM.

Yamaki was a disheveled mess. His hair was standing on end and he was wearing bigger sunglasses just to cover up the bags under his eyes.

"So there are now other Digimon Tamers throughout the world or am I hearing things right?" the Hypnos director inquired.

"It's true. There are now 104 children in a number of different countries with partners and digivices that just emerged tonight. That brings the total up to 117."

Yamaki looked at the list. "So you can keep track of them."

"Yes, but I'm the only one who can since I'm the only one with the software required. The information on the Tamers that's built into the digivices can only be accessed by me or from another digivice. Right now, one of the things I'm trying to do is decode the information from the message in the flash drive that Juri gave me while monitoring the battle the Tamers are fighting against a digimon named RuinSphinxmon and send it to at least one of the tamers."

"Multi-tasking is bad for you, you know."

"I realize that."

The screen changed and surrounding the Tamers' new opponent were several Mega-level digimon.

"This is bad…"

"What isn't?" Yamaki asked.

* * *

_Memories flowed through his mind, through his digi-core. He could recall clearly how he came to be on this course._

_ He remembered how, in his in-training form of Tsunomon, he was forced to fight the other in-training digimon to the death. He deleted one, loaded its data, and then proceeded to ambush the others, one by one, until he deleted them all._

_ Shortly after that, he achieved his Rookie form. At that point, he had the forces of various Champion-level digimon to contend with. So, he hid until these were asleep, killing them one by one, deleting them as soon as possible. It was during this period when he decided that no other digimon deserved to live as they were all a threat to his existence._

_ In his Champion form of Duskmon, he fought and killed as many enemy digimon as he possibly could. Anything he saw, he deleted. The only exception being that miserable DemiDevimon that he encountered. However, as Daemon, that thing, that object, thwarted his plans. Still, TysiachaGlazkovmon was the more powerful mega._

_ He was a dangerous digimon, the worst example of the effects of a world dominated by the concept of survival of the fittest._

* * *

Kyle felt pain and anguish inside RuinSphinxmon. He couldn't control his actions and the pain of the slash across his chest from Duskmon earlier was numbing.

"One of the numerous outcomes I've considered of the Tamers coming to save you was TysiachaGlazkovmon learning about how they reached the Mega stage," Kyle heard a voice say in front of him. He looked forward through the data-sphere to see a large, balding man who looked to be in his late thirties. The man continued talking. "Really, in case of that situation, I intend to split you from your partner digimon. However, to do this requires careful precision.

"I'm not sure what you know about the battle against TysiachaGlazkovmon in the original timeline. Basically, our battle involved Steven dying, you sacrificing yourself and my being taken away by Lucemon Ascension Mode. I wandered around the digital world for months after that, hoping that I would eventually figure out a way to rescue you guys like a time-travel digimon."

"Wait… Jacob?"  
The man continued talking. "However, it turns out that the only digimon who could do that was Milleniummon and I didn't want to encounter him from what little I heard of him. I just wanted to go back home. Your lives ended up not being the only ones lost to the digital abomination. Two years from now, a group of tamers including our friend Marcus will fight TysiachaGlazkovmon. Ultimately, even Marcus will die against him. The victor of that battle, in fact, the only survivor, was a tamer from Vegas named Andrew. However, in order to defeat the digimon, he had to pay a horrible price along with his partner, much like the one you're paying right now."

The scene in front of Kyle changed to one of a blonde boy and a large, Ultimate-level digimon with gold armor, OmegaShoutmon. The boy had a disturbed look on his face from the battle. One girl who had a Darcmon that had just become Sanzomon was just annihilated along with her monk-like partner. Marcus merged with Goblimon to become Pharaohmon but ultimately he was impaled by a strike from a squad of Ultimate Level digimon.

Kyle's eyes opened wide at that sight.

Then the blond boy, Andrew, screamed in terror as his digivice glowed in dark energy. "We have to biomerge… now!"

The blond held out his digivice and dark energy from his anger absorbed both him and his partner, merging them into a single, terrifying being, NecroShoutmon. The newly formed Mega-level digimon looked like a black, twisted version of OmegaShoutmon with a large number of spikes jutting out of every joint. The digimon opened its drooling mouth, revealing rows of sharp teeth and had a malnourished looking abdomen.

The large dark dragon digimon moved forward, destroyed every digimon in its pathe, struck at the central eye and tore it open, attacking its digicore and crushing it. TysiachaGlazkovmon then activated its backup, launching the pod with its rookie form in it nearly a kilometer away. The dragon noticed this and followed the pod.

The pod disintegrated on impact, the rookie form of the digimon hardly being made out other than a pair of upright purple ears with a yellow tip. Then NecroShoutmon crushed it, deleting the enemy digimon permanently.

Kyle looked on in silence, feeling sorry for the boy. Hopefully he wouldn't have to deal with the same issues in this timeline.

Kyle decided to struggle his way out of the biomerge, but TysiachaGlazkovmon didn't want to budge. He had an idea dealing with the pod. He noticed it inside the kernel while Duskmon was forcing him to biomerge. He needed to get out of there.

"As you can tell," the future version of Jacob McCloskey continued speaking, "by defeating TysiachaGlazkovmon early on, we'll be able to prevent this catastrophe. I sent this to information to a friend named Koji as well. Good luck."

Kyle noticed the man say a name before disappearing. Koji. Who the heck was Koji? Maybe this Koji man had all the answers. Or maybe he had none of them. The brown-haired boy thought about it as the world around him went white.

* * *

It was quite the demoralizing sight. RuinSphinxmon had six Mega digimon surrounding him, all formed from the free-floating data in the small valley the battle was taking place in: BlackWarGreymon, Breakdramon, TyrantKabuterimon, ExoGrimmon, Callismon and Reapermon.

Immediately, BlackWargreymon went straight for Dukemon, claws extended and ready for the kill. Dukemon easily blocked his strikes with his shield, trying to prevent the dragon-man from slicing into his armor. He in turn parried with his lance, trying to at least get some sort of ground on him.

Breakdramon aimed for Beelzemon, who jumped up in the air and shot at the large mechanical dragon. One thing they noticed about these new digimon was that they didn't have a substitute digi-core that looked like an eye like TysiachaGlazkovmon's army. Still, they had to deal with the remains of that force which was what Hirokazu, Steven and Jacob were trying to do with their Rookie and two Ultimates.

Sakuyamon had to deal with Reapermon who kept attacking her with his scythes, though the large, mechanical grim reaper couldn't break through the shield that she put up.

SaintGalgomon had to prevent himself from being electrocuted by TyrantKabuterimon's electrical blasts. It was going to be a tough battle, but he would survive. He unleashed a couple volleys of his Mega Barrage attack against the giant, mechanical insect, which received damage, but not enough to take it out.

ExoGrimmon really took through Justimon for a loop. The large, purple and black dragon with numerous spikes, an axe on his tail and orange wings definitely had an advantage since the Kamen Rider digimon couldn't fly. So Justimon decided to try and use his small size compared to ExoGrimmon to an advantage, striking the armored dragon in its weak spots while the lumbering beast attempted to swat at him.

Aegisdramon was actually having a fairly easy battle against Callismon. The large bear kept trying to shoot the flying water digimon but kept missing. Maybe these things were mindless after all.

In the mean time, RuinSphinxmon was watching the battle. If any of the Tamers were actually looking at the digimon, they would notice that his form was flickering, showing how unstable the biomerge actually was.

A ways into the battle, while most of the digimon were on the verge of losing the battle, the digimon destabilized completely and the Megas that the team was fighting against disintegrated into data.

"Everybody alright?" Takato asked the group from inside Dukemon.

"I think I'm fine. I'm a little worn out, though," Ruki told the boy. In reality, she wanted to go home and sleep for days, but that wouldn't happen unless they finished what they were doing here.

Jenrya looked at the radar from inside his data-sphere. "Kyle's not inside TysiachaGlakovmon." He looked over at the enemy Mega who seemed to be regrouping after the loss of his partner. "Where could he possibly be?"

"Want me to go check?" that question came from an unlikely source: Hirokazu.

"Go ahead. We'll cover you," Justimon said, also worn out from the battle.

Hisyarumon spoke next. "I'll fly you there if you want."

"Sure thing. Andromon, are you ready to try what I was thinking?"

"Affirmative, Hirokazu. Let us do this!"

The brown-haired boy held out his digivice and said the words, "Biomerge Activate!"

"Andromon biomerge to… HiAndromon!"

Andromon's new body was complete with black armor and a visor to protect his eyes from the sun.

"Man, I've gotta try that one of these days," Steven commented as he boarded Hisyarumon with HiAndromon. "Lucemon, protect my brother, okay?"

"That I will," the angel affirmed, smiling.

The long, winding dragon flew towards the large eyeball digimon. "Okay, I'm detecting Kyle again. I'm not sure where he was, but let's finish this!"

HiAndromon nodded. "Piece of cake."

The other, more worn out Megas attacked the remains of the army. There were still a few dozen left. While Hisyarumon approached, the eyes floating closest to the kernel started firing at the team. "That's the Eye Laser attack. Man, those things are nasty," Steven said, trying to prevent himself from being struck by them. Thankfully the efforts of SaintGalgomon to delete as many of them with his Mega Barrage attack weren't in vain and the number of eyes started to diminish.

The dragon shot a number of energy blasts at TysiachaGlazkovmon's core eye, hoping to breach the outer hull, but the attacks didn't seem to have any advantage.

"Let me take care of this," HiAndromon ordered.

"Go ahead," Hisyarumon said. "It's not like I'm getting anywhere."

"Atomic Ray!"

HiAndromon managed to shoot an energy blast that breached through TysiachaGlazkovmon's core. The cyborg jumped into the core and was ready to face anything that came his way.

Steven's battle wasn't over, however, since just as he started to turn away from the digital abomination, he noticed Velgemon coming from behind. "Oh, you've gotta be kidding me! Not that guy!"

* * *

Koji Minamoto hoped that the programming inside Kyle's digivice to deal with whatever situation they encountered would help in the battle. Still, he wished that Shibumi would have remembered to get the message to the tamers before they started fighting TysiachaGlazkovmon, or rather, RuinSphinxmon.

Then again, shortly after the message ended, it seemed that the digimon was reverting to his previous form. Koji wondered how that was happening.

He checked the digivice display on his screen and found that Kyle's was nowhere to be found. Monitoring the Tamers was rather difficult. One of the things he found out shortly after discovering the TV Show in the post-Unification universe was that just about every digivice was a recording device so that someone could monitor them. It was a disconcerting thought, since by just finding out the right signal, their enemies could spy on them.

So much for privacy…

The man continued working on the computer, despite it being three in the morning. Shortly after Kyle's de-biomerge, he received a knock on the door. A girl of about twelve years of age with long black hair wearing a t-shirt and long, turquoise pajama bottoms walked in. "What are you doing still up?" she asked.

"I'm monitoring the Tamers and making sure that they don't lose against TysiachaGlazkovmon."

The girl understood, having seen the message from Jacob McCloskey and already knowing the entire mission as best as she could.

"What are you doing up?" Koji asked.

"Had another bad dream."

"About your father?" the black-haired man inquired, receiving a nod from the girl. "Tanya, we'll save him. If I'm right, his partner's now currently in this world and he's going to be a tamer, though not for awhile. He won't even be on the path towards becoming the Second Emperor until 2006 and the major battles against him won't be until 2008."

"I know. It's just… when he died. I still worry about him. There's a part of me that just wants to go and meet him since I know he's alive in this time. Funnily enough, we're very close to the same age now. Maybe I should just go randomly visit him."

Koji smiled a little bit. "Go ahead. You'll just be responsible for whatever changes you cause to happen to the timeline."

Tanya breathed deeply. "I probably won't. Don't you ever want to go see Takuya or Izumi?"

"The versions of Takuya and Izumi that exist in this universe are quite different from their counterparts in mine. It wouldn't be the same. Maybe what you could do is go see him from afar. I know there's a part of you that wants to go meet him and claim you're his cousin, but he'd probably see past that. I'm planning on putting him in a team in Las Vegas after he gets partnered."

Tanya nodded, smiling. "Okay. Well, good night. I've got school in the morning so I better get _some_ sleep."

"Good night, then." Koji turned as his door shut and he got back to work on the computer. He was shocked to find Kyle back inside TysiachaGlazkovmon's core.

"He's almost awake."

"Hopefully those dermal regenerators worked."

"I'm more worried about psychological damage from de-partnering him."

"Can you think of how many tries it took for these machines to work without killing the tamers in the process?"

Kyle woke up, surrounded by voices, none of which he recognized save one: the future Jacob McCloskey. The brown haired boy recognized the man working some distance from him with another man. The room he was in looked almost sterile with the main exception being the books that littered the place.

The red-haired woman above him was busy patching up his chest when she noticed that his eyes were opened and he was staring at her. "You're Ruki, aren't you?"

Ruki called out to Jacob. "He's awake!"

Jacob and the other man, presumably Takato, turned around and walked up to Kyle. "What do you know? How do you feel?"

"Like I've been run over by a truck."

Jacob smiled. "Well, that's a start."

"I'm in the future, aren't I?"

The group nodded.

"What's going on that made you guys decide to tamper with the timestream?"

Takato paused for a second. "If we hadn't have taken you out of TysiachaGlazkovmon, we would have lost."

"You're here, aren't you?"

"Actually, this place exists on a dimensional plane where we wouldn't be affected by changes in the time stream," Ruki told him.

"We had to alter history as a last resort," Jacob said.

"Why, what happened?" Kyle asked.

"You know the third season of Digimon?" Kyle nodded. "Well, Tanya's team actually lost their final battle. The results were catastrophic and now we're trying to make sure that such a digimon doesn't come into existence."

"What kind of Digimon?"

Takato was the one who spoke next. "The digimon's name is Ragnamon or Galacticmon, depending on what naming scheme you want to use. He's a Super Ultimate level, artificial digimon that's the result of a fusion between one of his lower forms and a space station orbiting the digital world."

"After fusing with the station, Galacticmon flew down to the digital world. Tanya's team tried to stop him, but they couldn't," Ruki said.

"And now that monstrosity is fused with the digital world, creating a new digimon named Gaiamon. Got it?" Jacob asked.

Kyle's mind was trying to process all that information. "In other words, the bad guys made the digimon version of Unicron and if they didn't go back in time, we'd be screwed."

"As it is, every change they've made has had different repercussions," Jacob explained further. "So we've had to stay here and monitor them, sending them information on what the changes in the timeline have caused so that they can make sure things stay sane."

Kyle thought about that for a few more seconds. "So, now what? Am I going to go back in time?"

Jacob nodded. "In a few minutes. Right now, Yahiko's trying to get you a new shirt?"

"Yahiko?"

"Their son," the large man pointed at Takato and Ruki.

"Man, I knew there had to be something going on between you two."

"Not for another few years," Ruki told him.

"Yeah, I remember our first date," Takato said.

"Yeah, what made you think it was a good idea to go to Star Wars: Episode 3?"

"Hey, admit it, you had fun!" The two smiled at each other and Ruki chuckled.

Kyle pondered things for a couple more minutes before asking. "What about my partner?"

"You're no longer partnered with TysiachaGlazkovmon. That means that you may have any partner you wish," a black-haired woman that Kyle definitely didn't recognized said.

Then Kyle made a completely unexpected request. "I'm going to need the biggest, sharpest knife you've got. Also, when you send me back in time, I'm going to need you to send me right inside TysiachaGlazkovmon's core eye-thingy."

"That could be a bit dangerous," Takato warned.

"Yeah, but the others were going to rescue me from that thing and from what I saw of what they did so far, it's going to take awhile for the giant eyeball to regroup, giving them the perfect window of opportunity to come in and get me while destroying the thing's digicore. In the mean time, I have a partner to get. I'm not sure if I'm going to ever let that thing digivolve, considering what I saw of its digivolution line, but it might work out somehow."

Jacob paused for a second. "Okay. We'll do it."

"Jacob, are you nuts?" Ruki criticized him.

"Yeah, but so is he and, knowing him, I wouldn't be able to talk him out of it if I wanted to. So there." Then the man turned to Kyle. "By the way, Duskmon's not the only line in that specific Rookie digimon. In fact, he's merely a corrupt version of the true line. Don't let Duskmon scare you out of achieving your full potential."

Kyle didn't know what to say to that, but he didn't have a chance to either as a red-haired Japanese boy came in with a shirt showing some band that the brown-haired boy had never heard of: 'Mumford and Sons'.

"You should be able to fit into this," the boy, presumably Yahiko said.

"Uh, thanks."

"So, are you ready?" Jacob asked.

Kyle smirked. "As ready as I'll ever be."

"Then let's get going!" The large, middle-aged man led Kyle to a mysterious chamber with white light while handing the boy a knife.

"Beam me up…" Kyle remarked as he got in the middle of the chamber. "This thing isn't going to tear me apart and then send me somewhere else, is it?"

"No, don't worry about that. This is a time portal. We found it on a distant planet." Jacob paused for a second. "No, it wasn't built by aliens."

"It wasn't? Who built it?"

Jacob chuckled. "We're still trying to figure that out, but we know they're human. The leading theory amongst our little group: Me, Takato, Ruki, Yahiko, Consuelo, Antonio and Shibumi, is that they're somehow connected with Gennai."

"Crazy. Okay, I'm ready. Let's go."

Jacob typed in a few controls. "You will appear about twenty seconds after you disappeared. By the way, that's my best knife I gave you, you better bring it back."

"I'll give it to you in the past."

The tall, heavy guy smiled. "Okay, man, let's go!" Jacob smashed down on the touchscreen control in front of him and the portal opened up underneath Kyle.

* * *

A few seconds later from Kyle's point of view, he landed right next to the capsule for TysiachaGlazkovmon's backup. The curly-haired boy quickly got to work trying to keep his mind from telling him how stupid of a plan this was while at the same time slicing through the cords connecting the capsule from the rest of TysiachaGlazkovmon. It seemed that it took the giant eyeball time to recuperate after the debiomerging that just happened.

Kyle was about finished with the top when a Duskmon materialized right in front of him. The Duskmon was about to strike, but then Kyle heard a voice yell out "Atomic Ray!"

Looking behind the disintegrating digimon, the brown-haired boy spotted HiAndromon. The android had a sword much like Duskmon's on the arm that he didn't use for shooting the digimon that Kyle lovingly nicknamed 'Freaky Eyeball Man'. Apparently the sword on the digimon's arm was the result of using his Copy-Paste technique on one of the digimon that was guarding the place.

Kyle was finished cutting the top just as the digimon saved him. "Hey, would you mind using your sword on the bottom of this thing so we can unhinge it?"

"I was going to destroy it..."

"Trust me. Do that and then stab the digicore," Kyle told the Mega in front of him. HiAndromon complied, cutting off the bottom of the capsule from the rest of TysiachaGlazkovmon's eye. Then several other Duskmon showed up. HiAndromon proceeded to shoot all but one which he stabbed in half before stabbing into the digicore, causing a burst of light to appear in the room. Kyle looked away and at the capsule which was slowly disintegrating, revealing a purple and yellow rabbit underneath. The brown-haired boy grabbed the rookie and held on to him just as the place was starting to disintegrate into nothingness.

The first thing ViElecmon saw when he opened his eyes was Kyle looking right back him just before the two were caught by Hisyarumon. He had no knowledge, no speech, no idea what just happened and Kyle wouldn't talk about it for another two years.

The battle was over.

* * *

Next Chapter: New Beginnings

A/N: Well, here we go. I hope that battle was good enough for you guys and that you enjoyed TysiachaGlazkovmon. I hope the reasons for the villain's (admittedly skewed) motivations made some sense. Basically it was the survival of the fittest attitude of the digital world taken to an extreme. Definitely not a pleasant thought to think of how many other digimon got that twisted idea.

Yeah, after this story, there are definitely enough plot points to last a couple more books (Whether these guys fight Gaiamon for real is up in the air, though). I definitely write Kudzu plots, don't I?

The reason for ViElecmon being the rookie form for the Duskmon line is quite simple. I was actually inspired a bit by the lion theming behind Löwemon and looking at ViElecmon, he really doesn't have any evolutions. No seriously, look at his entry on Wikimon and you'll see that the only evolution for him is Leomon (which is canonically Elecmon's evolution).

Hope you enjoyed the future!Rukato in this chapter. Hehe, that had to at least make up for the lack of it in the battle scenes. I have to admit, mass battles are way hard for me to write so if you're disappointed at me for that scene, sorry.


	8. New Beginnings

Chapter 8: New Beginnings

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own digimon, however, I own the OCs in this fic.

* * *

Koji walked down the waterside street to his work the following morning, glad that he at least got something accomplished. He just wished that he could fast forward to the time that he had to prevent his team from going with Gennai. This would take awhile. Two years was a long time. It wasn't going to be until August of 2004 until he had at least a chance of meeting with the others.

The black-haired man stopped a soccer ball. Looking forward he saw Takuya, of all people, running toward him. Bending over, Koji grabbed the ball and handed it to the brown-haired boy. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Koji responded to the alternate version of his best friend. "My name is Koji, by the way."

"Takuya."

"Playing a little soccer before school, I see."

"Yeah, I just have a few days before graduation and then I'm off to college."

"Cool. Where are you going?"

"There's a school in Osaka I've been trying to get into," Takuya replied. "Well, anyway, I got to get to class. It's nice to meet you." They bowed to one another and then split ways.

It was awkward and yet it felt so good to see his best friend again. Koji felt the tears well up as he continued walking.

Perhaps Tanya had a point.

* * *

"Are you sure that we should let that thing around our group?" Ruki asked. The Tamers were all in the middle of TysiachaGlazkovmon's valley, recovering from their wounds. After the digital abomination was defeated, the rest of the army disintegrated as well. It felt odd. Victory was so simple. It almost felt too simple.

Now they just had to wait for the ark to arrive and pick up all of them. Kyle was busy sleeping with ViElecmon on his chest while everyone else just lay about.

"I'm sure it's going to be fine," Hirokazu told the red-head.

"Yeah, sure, _you_ say that. You're practically joined at the hip now."

Hirokazu laughed. "Yeah, we're friends."

"I'm just worried that the thing's going to become Duskmon again."

"Don't worry about it, Ruki," Takato said. "I'm sure that with Kyle raising him, ViElecmon will never become that digimon again. Or if it does become that digimon again, he won't be evil."

Ruki smiled at Takato. Always thinking the best about people… She was happy to be friends with him.

Friends… They _were_ just friends, right? Now Ruki didn't know for sure and she felt fear course through her veins.

Fear because of her father. Fear that she might end up like her mother. Realization that she didn't want that.

The red-head got up. "I'm just going to go for a walk. Renamon?"

The vixen popped up next to her tamer and the two walked to the edge of the valley.

Jenrya was also quite pensive. He was staring at his digivice's holographic screen, looking at the schematics for the program.

"So, whatcha doing?" Terriermon asked.

"Just thinking about Shibumi's program." Jenrya looked over at the rest of the group. "You guys think we should release this here?"

Takato looked up at him. "You mean the Village of Beginnings?"

"It sounds like as good a spot as any," Ryo commented. "There's been so much death here."

"Let's do it then!" Hirokazu exclaimed. Kyle woke up upon hearing the commotion. He picked up ViElecmon as he did so, holding the rabbit with its back against his chest.

"What's going on and where are Steven and Jacob?" the brown-haired American asked.

"We're going to set up the Village of Beginnings program here," Jenrya explained in English. "I don't know where the two brothers went."

"They probably went on another potty break together," Terriermon commented, eliciting a groan and a "Terriermon!" from Jenrya.

Kyle looked grossed out. "Okay… I'm pretty sure that since they're brothers and they share the same room, they've probably seen each other naked but… dude, let's not go there!"

"Anyway, let's get this over with." Jenrya pressed a button on the D-Arc's screen. A series of blocks of neon wire appeared all around them along with cribs made of the same material. "Now, you're going to have to get out of any of these wires." The others did so and Jenrya deployed the program completely, data spilling out of his digivice and forming into the multicolored blocks, the cribs and the fancy ground of the Village of Beginnings from the TV Show.

Then something else happened. Eggs started to form and fall from the sky en masse. Everyone watched in amazement as that happened.

"Wow, this is awesome!" Takato exclaimed, running over to an egg and picking it up.

"No kidding. Man, who's going to take care of these baby digimon?"

"Perhaps I can be of assistance." The group turned around to see a Devimon along with a number of other digimon. It didn't take long for them to realize who that Devimon was.

"Daemon?" Kyle inquired.

"Why yes. I used so much energy in that final battle and I had to take so much damage that I reverted to my Champion form."

"Wow, you know this world's screwed up when all the devils are good guys," Impmon commented.

"That goes to show that anyone can change, doesn't it?" the black-clad digimon replied while feeling an egg he picked up. "It's a shame that my hands aren't so tender."

"So, how did that battle go?" Jenrya asked.

"It was a disaster. Thankfully the sovereigns and a small number of other digimon are still alive or else I'd be afraid of extinction. Still, this gives us hope. A hope for the future beyond a bunch of Rookie digimon in the human world." He whispered the last part. "Is Ryudamon around here?"

He asked that question just as Steven and Jacob came back from their little sojourn. Spotting Ryudamon with Steven, Devimon smiled.

"Well, what do you know? I was right about you getting a Tamer. One of these days I'll have to get one of my own." The tall digimon laughed.

"Wow, I wasn't expecting to see you again. Is Shoutmon in the Human world now?" Ryudamon asked.

"Yes, he is. Hopefully by now he has found a partner."

* * *

Of course, Shoutmon found a partner. Unfortunately, he ended up stuck in his In-training form until his Tamer got home from school. As soon as the blond boy got home and in the safe confines of his room, however, he let the poor Gigimon out of his backpack and digivolved him back into his Rookie form again.

"What'd you do that for?" Shoutmon asked loudly.

"How else was I going to sneak you out of the school?" Andrew replied. Right now he was wearing a red shirt and a pair of blue jeans. The reptile just shrugged.

"I don't have a clue."

"As it is, I had a hard time getting you out of gym class without the coaches spotting you. By the way, I'm not sure I want my parents to know about you yet."

"Yeah? What are you going to do about that?" Shoutmon asked.

Andrew scratched his chin. "Not a clue. I guess you'll just have to pretend to be a stuffed animal." Then the blond thought of something. "Are you hungry?"

The reptile digimon did feel a growl coming from the pits of his stomach, so he nodded. In response, the blond boy went to go get some food.

So, Shoutmon just stood there in that room with the blue walls, the nice, soft bed, a computer desk by the door and a dresser just on the other side of the desk from the door. The red lizard decided to climb on top of Andrew's bed just as the door opened. Upon seeing that the person who entered was not his partner, Shoutmon just went limp. _Play stuffed animal. Man, do you have any idea how uncomfortable this is?_

The blonde girl that entered just looked around for something. Then she noticed Shoutmon. "When did Andrew get this? Great, more Digimon merchandise…"

So, she decided to pick up the lizard.

Unfortunately as she did so, Shoutmon ended up moving, freaking the sixteen-year-old out. "Oh my gosh, it moved!" she shouted as she dropped the red lizard on his head. Just then, Andrew walked by with a couple of ice cream cones and with a surprised look on his face.

He hadn't expected his sister to find out so soon about Shoutmon.

* * *

Ruki found herself walking through a forest with her partner, thinking. She didn't know what to think about her friendship with Takato. Where was it headed? Could a boy and a girl truly stay just friends? Or was she doomed to be just like her mother?

The girl's fist ended up striking a tree.

"Why does life have to be so complicated?" she shouted.

"Ruki…"

The girl's walk was supposed to make things easier, but it didn't. So she sat down, trying to make sense of everything in her life. Renamon sat down across from her, one knee up. "What's wrong?" the fox asked.

"I don't know. It's… It's Takato. I'm afraid I might be in love with him or something. And I don't know what to do. I mean, doesn't love Juri? And the worst thing is that I kind of like his attention."

The girl frowned and then looked up to the sky. She couldn't be with Takato and she knew it. She couldn't be like her mother who had a child young. She didn't want to be like that, so why should she?

Only time could change things.

She sat there, staring off into the distance until an hour later when her digivice beeped. On it appeared a small hologram of Takato.

"Hey, the ark's on its way," Takato said.

"Thanks. I'll be there in a few minutes," she responded, pushing her feelings aside and getting up. Thankfully, she wasn't that far away from the clearing, just far enough away for nobody else to hear her yelling. As soon as she got there, she heard voices in the background.

"Are you sure it's a good idea to bring that thing with you?" Steven asked Kyle, who was holding a smiling ViElecmon.

"Hey, it's fine. I'm sure of it. As it is, it seems like he doesn't even remember anything from his past life," the brown-haired boy responded. Ruki knew that thing would be dangerous. At least their team had Lucemon on it.

"ViElecmon can't even talk yet. He's like a cute, little baby!" Jacob exclaimed, tickling the small, rabbit-like digimon in the stomach to its glee.

"Yeah, I think his mind was a clean slate," Kyle exclaimed, scratching the digimon on the ears. "Besides, it's not like I have to digivolve him."

Steven looked at him as if he were mad. "Honestly? If you want to be one of the best Tamers around, you're going to have to."

"I have an alternative," Kyle indicated, removing one arm from around ViElecmon to pull something out of his deck. He then showed the red-head the card.

"Digi-egg of Light? Wait, you sure that he can armor digivolve?"

"I could try it," Kyle said. Ruki just rolled her eyes.

"We've tried that before," the girl said. "Jenrya attempted to digivolve Terriermon using the Digimental of Destiny and it didn't work."

Kyle's response was actually a pretty good one. "Maybe with the upgrade to the digivice, we can."

Ruki didn't know what to say to that one. Then again, she was reasoning with a person that decided to be boneheaded and go back to being inside TysiachaGlazkovmon despite having an option to go anywhere he wanted to, such as on the edge of the battlefield with Lopmon and Culumon. Then again, Googleheads did tend to be idiots sometimes, though Takato has mostly grown out of that.

There she was, thinking about Takato again.

So she wandered over to the others. It turned out that there was a Devimon there who was talking to Hirokazu, Kenta and their partners, which was odd. There were also myriads of digi-eggs lying around.

Her conclusion: Jenrya must have released Shibumi's program.

So she picked up one of the eggs and rubbed it a little. The small object cracked open and a small, red digimon popped out: Punimon.

The others looked at her. Ruki just caused the first digi-egg to hatch, eliciting smiles from everyone.

However, the one smile the girl noticed the most was Takato's. And then she felt herself smile back at the boy.

* * *

Juri Katou went straight home after school, knowing she had some work to do for her parents at their restaurant. That day, she did some waitressing, helping get customer's orders and bringing their food. A couple hours into her shift, she noticed a tall, blond boy walk in and sit down. So, she naturally walked over to take his order.

The boy smiled. She recognized him as the Tamer with the Baalmon from the night before. "What would you like?"

"Uh, I guess I'll get the best sushi you guys got."

Juri wrote that down, nervously. The boy obviously knew she recognized him. So she told her parents the boys order and they fixed it. She still felt curious about the boy, wondering who exactly he was. She figured he was Kentaro Takaishi just from the basic profile of the kid, his partner digimon and his digivice, but other than that, she had no real proof. So, she felt obliged to investigate further.

She walked over to him as he was reading a book. Looking at the book, she was surprised to see that it was in English: _Jumper_ by Steven Gould. Her best guess was that the book was about a hoodie, which was way off since it was actually about a seventeen year old that finds out he can teleport.

The boy looked up from his book and said hi, completely stunning Juri.

"Uh, hi. My name's Juri Katou."

The boy chuckled. "Yeah? I saw you last night. Can you guess my name?"

The girl stuttered nervously. "You're probably going to laugh since I probably have it all wrong but… Kentaro Takaishi."

Kentaro smiled. "You're right. And here the guy I was with didn't think you'd be able to guess since animation looks so different from real life."

"So, you're really…"

"Yeah. I currently live in Musashino with my teammates. It's not too long on the subway. And plus, I won't accidentally run into one of my parents or something."

"The show really happened, didn't it?"

"Most of it," Kentaro told her, just as the call for his sushi came in. He gave her the money and she brought back the rolls. When he received his food, he continued. "There were a few differences. Then again, that was probably because our adventures went through the filter of various writers, executives, and more."

"Why are you here then?"

"Well, we… we lost our final battle and our only other option to save the world was to come back in time. So, here we are, trying to live while trying to figure out who was behind our future enemies. We've also been trying to rescue a few people. Two of the Americans in the digital world, for instance."

Juri nodded. She had a hard time believing all of this. A time traveler… more than that, a dimension traveler.

"So, do you miss your world?" she asked as the boy bit into his sushi.

Kentaro chuckled a little bit. "My time, yeah. The worlds end up combining in a couple years, which is one of the things we're trying to investigate. I really miss my parents, though. I haven't seen them in more than a year." It actually felt good for him to talk to someone other than his teammates about this. She had to go to help out more customers, so he had a chance to finish eating.

It was tough, having to leave everything behind back there, but he did it. He had to do it. There was no other way to defeat Gaiamon. The digimon was so far beyond the strength of even a Super Ultimate level digimon. He still remembered the massive spherical digimon beginning to emerge in Earth's orbit after he got back to the human world just before going into the Axis of Time to be sent back by Jacob McClosky.

But now that was behind him. Once he finished his dinner, he got up to leave. Then he heard Jeri. "Good bye and come again."

He turned around and smiled. Then he pulled a small notepad out of his pocket and asked "Would you mind if I got your number?"

Juri was taken by surprise. "Sure." Then she gave him her number. He then wrote down his and handed it to the girl. "If you want to talk, feel free to call," Juri said.

"Sure. It was good talking with you. You, uh, won't tell anyone else about this, will you?"

The girl shook her head. "Nobody would believe me, anyway."

The guy chuckled. "I guess it is a bit unbelievable. Well, enjoy the rest of your day at work."

"Take care." Juri headed back to serve another customer. She checked her digivice as well. It was no longer filled with static. She wondered why. Leomon couldn't have been reborn. Could he?

* * *

Yamaki arrived at the terminal just in time to see a tall man with curly brown hair walk in through the gate. Only one of the parents of the American tamers could come due to budget constraints, and this happened to be him. The man had a moustache and a determined look on his face.

"Hello, my name is Mitsuo Yamaki. I am pleased to meet you," the Hypnos leader said in his best English.

"Boris Dibenko," the man responded, smiling. Unfortunately for Yamaki, this man had a thick Russian accent.

"Funny, I was expecting you to be angry."

"Angry? I'm not angry, I'm furious. Now, when can I meet my son?" the man said, walking towards the

Yamaki adjusted his sunglasses as he followed the man. "We're almost ready to send the ark to retrieve him and the others."

"Didn't you send one of those things before?"

"Yes, we did. However, that ark was destroyed during the final battle with the D-Reaper when he had to merge with Dukemon. We constructed the new one using the source code for the older model, albeit modified slightly so as to prevent sentience."

"Ah, sounds complicated. So, has my son been behaving?"

"Well, though there were some… altercations. It turned out he somehow partnered himself with a powerful enemy digimon."

The duo finally reached the elevator to the parking garage and so Yamaki pressed the button for the floor he was on. "It figures that my son would do something like that. My family tends to have the worst of luck."

Yamaki chuckled.

* * *

The tamers waited for hours until the ark finally made it. The first thing they saw was a bizarre, circular contraption coming down out of the globe in the sky. Apparently they could now reach the Tamers from anywhere in the Digital World.

"I guess this is it," Devimon commented. "It was good meeting your group. I hope we can meet again someday. Maybe I'll go to your world then."

Takato smiled at the black-clad digimon. "Maybe. Who knows, you might get a Tamer of your own."

"Just don't run into any Tamer that'll kill whatever digimon he comes across," Hirokazu said. "There are bound to be some of those. Just ask Ruki."

The red-head gave him a dirty look.

"I'll be sure to state my intentions as soon as we face each other," Devimon responded. "In the mean time, I'll be guarding this village and making sure that the digimon that hatch grow into fine, respectable citizens."

Jenrya scratched his chin. It was hard to believe it was all over. The final battle with TysiachaGlazkovmon went by so quick. Then they waited here. Jenrya felt a tear come to his eye as he saw the new Village of Beginnings around him. Already there were a number of baby digimon hatched. The other digimon that came with Devimon were taking care of them. Apparently they got more than they asked for.

Unfortunately, the Chinese boy noticed something off as the Ark came down. "Where's Ryo?"

"He ran off somewhere with Cyberdramon," Ruki answered. "Apparently Mr. Perfect's partner decided he needed to blow off some steam."

"There's another threat in the Digital World according to messengers that have gone out since the final battle with TysiachaGlazkovmon. Apparently a swarm of Parasimon has appeared somewhere in the distant reaches of the Northern Quadrant," Devimon told the group. "Prepare yourselves in case these digimon decide to come to the real world."

"It shouldn't be a problem," Ruki said. "We can take them."

Kyle watched in awe as the Ark came down for them. He had no idea what to think of the vehicle other than that it looked pretty cool. "So, are you ready to go home, buddy?" he asked his partner in his arms, getting a smile in response. Despite his worries about his partner's higher forms, the boy was ready to face whatever he would encounter.

Steven and Ryudamon stood by. "Ready to meet my family?" the red-head asked his partner.

"They sound like nice people," Ryudamon answered.

"Yeah, they are," Jacob said. "I'm sure they'll like you two. Especially you, Lucemon."

"I hope so. Still, it looks like going to the human world will be quite the adventure."

"Yeah, we live in a city called Denver. You'll really like it."

"Will I be able to fly?" he asked.

"Sure. Just don't let anybody shoot you," Steven joked.

"There's so much to do there. Maybe we should take you to a movie sometime," Jacob told his partner. "Spider-man's coming out this summer!"

"Isn't there an X-Men sequel coming out too?" Steven asked.

"What's Spider-man and X-Men?" Ryudamon asked.

"Superheroes," Kyle responded, not facing the group. "Kind of like us, only they have powers themselves. So, if you see a bank robbery, feel free to use a Divine Feet on them! Just don't do it too hard."

Lucemon and Ryudamon were both still utterly confused by that. They had so much to learn about the human world.

Jacob just smiled and so did Steven. Kyle tried, but he was worried. He would definitely stick to Armor Digivolution. He checked the help files on the digivice and found out that it would be possible somehow. He couldn't wait to try it on ViElecmon, even though he was certain the new forms would be something completely different from what he knew.

Then again, what would life be like without all these mysteries? It was impossible to learn everything about the world. There would always be something new.

* * *

When the Ark finally came, Shibumi watched them get on, one by one. The only one missing was Ryo along with his partner. The man was still tired from the previous night, having only been woken up a couple hours earlier by Babel who found him in his messy room.

At least everything seemed to be going smoothly. The man would have to make a few scans of Terriermon in order to make sure that the digimon didn't have any trace of Shaggai inside him. He was glad that everything was starting to come together.

* * *

Boris Dibenko waited for a while at the emergence site with the other parents. Most of them didn't speak much English and the ones that did couldn't understand his heavy accent. He's tried to remove it as best as he could, but it still remains. Maybe some accent reduction classes would be in order eventually. That was the price of coming to the States in his late teens and knowing very little English.

The man stood there in his raincoat as it started to sprinkle. He didn't know what he was going to do as soon as he locked his eyes on his son and his two friends, but he knew that he would be happy that the boy made it home after all this time.

He looked at his phone's clock. It was 6:00 local time. He just wanted this to be over. It was his luck that he worked for an airline and so could get a nice discount on plane tickets. It was also his luck that Hypnos was paying for his ticket anyway, but it was already decided in the beginning as soon as they received the calls that he would be the one to go. He didn't like using his vacation days so much, but at least he got an excuse from the United States Government division Echelon, who wanted to meet with the three tamers. Apparently they were going to offer them a job in case digimon realized in Denver.

The man rubbed his temples. Jet lag was a pain.

Then mist started to come out of a hole in the ground in the park that he was in. It seemed that the Ark was finally here. A few minutes later, the mist started to clear and numerous silhouettes of children and digimon appeared. The children moved forward and embraced their parents. Boris knew that his own son was there. In fact, the boy was right in front of him.

"Dad…?" The boy embraced him, almost dropping ViElecmon in the process.

Steven was about to ask where his mother was but decided it would ruin the moment.

Ryudamon was amazed to see how many humans there were.

Jacob was just ready to go home. He missed his mother and his other siblings.

Lucemon was curious but didn't speak.

The only one of the parents that didn't look impressed was Ryo's dad, who apparently wasn't informed that his son wouldn't be coming home _again_.

At least everything was okay.

* * *

Mitsuo Yamaki finished typing in the rest of his report. He was about to lean back in his chair in exhaustion when Reika walked in with a piece of paper.

"What's this?" the blond asked.

"Hypnos apparently wants your permission to hire the Tamers in case more digimon come through the barriers," the brunette replied.

Yamaki looked over the papers. "Chances are, there aren't going to be any more bioemergences for awhile."

"Still, we should be cautious." Reika smiled. "For all we know, something big could be headed our way."

Yamaki looked on. In a few minutes, the Tamers would be coming in to give a final report on the situation in the digital world as well as send off the American team.

The blond would be glad after this is all over. He was in a mood for a vacation with Reika, possibly even proposing to her while he was at it.

Of course, he still had the identity of Shibumi's mysterious friend to figure out. That person wouldn't be getting away that easily. Then there was the existence of the three digimon in Koto along with the hundred-or-so Tamers that were given partners by the sovereigns in case TysiachaGlazkovmon defeated the Japanese team.

Yamaki sighed at the amount of work that lay ahead.

* * *

Next Chapter: The Coming Storm

A/N: Wow, I wrote that pretty quick. It was hard getting the points of view of all those characters. I'm trying to improve my writing ability as far as that is concerned (which may result in the next story being far longer than this one). The only chapter left for this story is the epilogue. The current stage of the Rukato relationship will conclude at this point. Ruki will have to confront her fears and make a decision that will affect her near future.

Believe it or not, I've already started on the sequel to this, taking place two years later. Digimon Tamers: World Tournament is due out soon after I release the last chapter. Oh, and an AU version of Ryouma from Xros Wars: Hunters will play a major role. Thus the mention of Koto, which actually isn't that far from Shinjuku, Shibuya or Odaiba. Google Maps was quite useful in writing this chapter.

Also, I'm willing to answer questions anyone has about this fic at the end of the last chapter. There will also be a preview for the next story.


	9. The Coming Storm

Chapter 9: The Coming Storm

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.

* * *

During the weeks after the Americans left, things started to slowly get back to normal. There were no bio-emergences to deal with, since the digital world was still pretty depopulated and their lives seemed to move on.

That was until the incident with Locomon and Parasimon. Still, that went easier than expected. Guardromon didn't even need to digivolve for it, although Hirokazu and Kenta found out during that battle that they couldn't biomerge, much to their chagrin.

Still, at least during that battle, Takato discovered that he could achieve Crimson Mode again, though he couldn't exactly control when he activated it.

Later that day, at the party, Takato noticed Ruki leave the main group after being asked to sing. Seeing that, the goggle-headed boy walked over to talk to her, before being stopped by Renamon.

The next day, they had a meeting at Hypnos about the future of their jobs as Tamers. "It turns out we're hiring you," Yamaki said, handing out paperwork. "Apparently the US organization Echelon decided to hire the three tamers you met in the digital world a few weeks ago and so my superiors decided to do the same."

"A job, huh?" Hirokazu inquired. "That's so cool. How much will we get paid?"  
"You will get paid on a digimon-by-digimon basis. Your rate of pay will also depend on the level of the digimon as well as whether you managed to negotiate with it or delete it. If you manage to negotiate so as to ensure that it lives in our world peacefully, you'll get paid more than if you delete it." Ironically, Echelon had the opposite policy. Yamaki worried that the tamers over there would exercise bloodlust and see this as a game.

"So, when do we start?" Kenta asked. "And how will the pay work?"

"You will start working for us immediately once you fill out this paperwork."

Ruki wasn't sure about all that. In fact, there was a part of her that wanted to run away right then and there. She obliged, filling out the paperwork to the best of her ability.

Yamaki then spoke some more. "Now, you will each receive cell-phones and we will call whenever there's a bio-emergence. There is also the case of another trio of Tamers that need to be investigated. Takato, Ruki, would you like to do that?" Ruki looked over at the brown-haired tamer uneasily while he smiled back.

"Okay, I'll do it," the red-head said.

"Yeah, me too," Takato confirmed.

* * *

A few minutes later, the two Tamers were out of the building with their partners. Ruki seemed rather quiet, though she was actually talking with Renamon. _I can't believe it,_ she thought to her partner.

_What's wrong?_

_ I'm stuck with that goggle-headed moron. You know, after that trip to the digital world, I _know _he likes me._

_ I thought the two of you were friends. _The quartet went through the subway station and went on an eastbound train headed for Koto. They had the addresses of the three tamers that lived there, named Ryouma, Airu and Ren, but they didn't know anything other than that except for the identities of their partners.

"So, how's it going?" Ruki almost didn't hear Takato say that. The boy looked at her a bit sheepishly, waiting for an answer.

"Things have been… good. You?" _Ugh! You didn't!_

"I'm doing alright. I haven't seen you since your party. Is there anything wrong?"

The girl sat there, thinking. She didn't know what to do. "No, nothing's wrong. It's just… between going to the digital world and dealing with the Parasimon… I don't know."

Takato looked down on the ground. How was he going to say it? "Listen, I know this may seem a bit abrupt, but… I don't know. I kind of…"

The girl looked at him. "Just say it Takato!"

"I kind of like you. I was hoping we could get to know each other a little bit better and… would you like to go out sometime?"

The girl gazed into his crimson eyes. She didn't know what to do. She liked him, she really did, but she was afraid. Afraid that she would end up like her mother. That she would end up in that situation. And that Takato would leave.

She didn't want that.

"I'm sorry, Takato… I'm not ready." She got up and left, crying. And she ran, she ran off the subway and far away until she couldn't run any more. Renamon prevented the girl from collapsing. It seemed they were in the middle of Odaiba.

Takato just sat there, speechless. He figured that was how it was going to turn out. But he carried on with the mission and went on to meet the three Tamers of Koto and give them an offer to work for Hypnos in dealing with Bioemergence. Tokyo would need all the help they could get to deal with any realized digimon that appeared since the barriers around the city were so weak and there would be many digimon born in the coming months, not all of them peaceful.

* * *

Returning home for the American team went surprisingly well, though Steven and Jacob's mother didn't know how to react to her sons bringing home partner digimon. Kyle's family was okay with it, unexpectedly. His parents and sister seemed to accept ViElecmon as a pet at first, until he learned more and gained intelligence. At that point, the digimon became part of the family.

For some strange reason, though, the more the digimon learned to speak, the more sarcastic he became. Still, he was a smart little rabbit and he learned how to read English pretty quickly.

Getting Lucemon to fit in was pretty easy, though he didn't go to school with the others. However, after learning how to read, he started to pick up large amounts of information from the encyclopedias that were available in libraries. Strangely enough, the digimon started to mature quite a bit, along with his partner. He seemed to gain his partner's innocence while Jacob gained Lucemon's awareness of the world around him.

Ryudamon and his partner's bonds deepened immensely. Over the next two years, the two of them did pretty close to everything together. Steven even snuck the digimon to school sometimes, though he kept him in his In-training form when he went.

Steven continued to grow. His voice became smoother and he lost a lot of weight while growing taller. He became a better tamer, despite already having reached the level cap of Ultimate and not having a way to biomerge in the real world. Still, he accepted that predicament and used Ryudamon's higher forms to his advantage.

Kyle, on the other hand, let his fear govern his methods of dealing with his partner. For one thing, he didn't allow his partner to digivolve into his normal champion form out of fear that his partner would become Duskmon again. Because of this, he stuck to his partner's armor forms, though he only had three Digimental cards: Courage, Friendship and Light. He did discover, however, that he could use two to armor digivolve his partner to a stronger form. Unfortunately, it seemed that two was the limit.

The trio was glad to have Marcus and Goblimon on their team and the tamer's partner reached his higher forms of Ogremon and Mummymon. The four worked for Echelon and got paid a pretty nice amount of money, which Kyle and Marcus's parents made them save while Jacob and Steven's mother made them use to help the family out.

In time, many digimon emerged, some good, many hostile. Many of the good ones became partner digimon for various children and teenagers in the greater Denver metropolitan area. This meant that in the end, Kyle's team only had to take care of the suburb in which they lived. Many of them became friends and allies while a few others became rivals for the jobs they did.

* * *

**2004**

During the two years since the D-Reaper invasion, the number of tamers multiplied across the world. Now there were tamers in many areas of each city across the world, though their freedoms varied drastically from country to country. Still, the Japanese team from Shinjuku was the strongest, especially since they were the only ones that could achieve the Mega level. Still, there would be tamers that weren't happy with that situation and that wanted to be more than what they were.

Unfortunately, because of this, there would be Tamers that didn't work for righteous reasons. Three of them eventually contacted each other and schemed towards an unknown end.

Still, despite all this, the Tamers had strong ties with each other from around the world. Takato even managed to practice his English by using the Digital Union website, which, unbeknownst to him, was set up by Koji Minamoto, Osamu Ichijouji and Kentaro Takaishi.

Three human figures and three digimon gathered in a park. One of the figures was on a swing, his gloved hands holding onto the chains. Another figure, a skinnier one, was leaning against a lamppost, his partner digimon floating around him. And another figure, a tall, fat one, was simply standing nearby, his partner standing next to him.

"It's about time we met," the figure on the swings said. He was ready to get his plans going, even going as far as running away from home to do so.

"Okay, what do you want?" the standing figure asked in a crackly voice. He just wanted to get this over with. It was cold outside. This was Fort Collins, Colorado in February, so temperatures were bound to be low, really low.

"That's what I'm asking," the leaning figure said. He had traveled across the country to get here on Garmmon and didn't want his time wasted.

"Darkness, Pride, I need your help. There is a team currently being assembled in the Vegas area. I believe that Kyle Dibenko may soon be a part of it," the figure on the swings said. The code names, those of crests, indicate what crests they can activate using their digivices. While upgrading the digivices, Shibumi needed a way for tamers to reach the Ultimate level that didn't involve cards. So, inspired by the crests from the TV show, he created a program that would emulate the effects of the crests, and then left it up to the digignomes to decide what crests everyone got.

"Kyle Dibenko?" the standing figure asked.

"I want him eliminated and his partner deleted."

"I can do that. That idiot lives in Denver and he hasn't even digivolved his partner. He relies on Armor Digivolution."

"Still, he could be a threat if he manages to digivolve," the one on the swings said. "His partner's Champion form is strong enough to take on Ultimates. If my plans for the digital world are to succeed, then he needs to be removed."

"Then what's my part in the plan?" the one leaning against the light pole inquired.

"You'll have to win the National Championship tournament."

"I'm moving to a different country."

"Then win it there. I'll try to win it while I'm down in South America as well. If you don't win, just sneak into the house of the real winner and steal their ticket to the World Championship."

* * *

Akihiro Kurata was enjoying life. After getting past his initial apprehension regarding the Tamers and their partner digimon, he started to love his job. Then there was Megumi, who he had started dating shortly after Yamaki and Reika got married. That was despite being a bit older than her. He was no longer afraid of digimon and he didn't notice any sort of allergies regarding them either.

Still, something about tonight irked him. He knew it didn't involve the Tamers. As he rode on the subway, it felt as if someone was watching him. He looked around, noticed a few people, mostly in their twenties and thirties, and then focused on getting off when he needed to.

He didn't know why there was such a shiver going down his spine.

Upon getting off, he continued forward, looking around to try and figure out who was watching him. Shortly after getting a job at Hypnos, he cut his hair, partially at the request of Megumi, so he didn't look so much like a mad scientist anymore other than his labcoat. He didn't notice anyone around him, but he knew that whoever was following him was there. It was almost as if he could sense them.

He tried to put aside such notions, but he couldn't. There was this very real sense of something. Something wrong.

Finally, he made it to his apartment building and went up the elevator. He felt even worse. Maybe there wasn't someone following him. Maybe there was someone in his room. How would he know?

He felt a disturbing dread upon opening his door. Looking in, he saw his living room, a sparsely furnished one with a couch and a TV. The dread was coming from the bathroom.

The man decided to pull out his knife just in case. He only kept it on his person in case some mugger came out of the woodwork, but this was a special case. There was someone obviously here. His bedroom door was open. His cat was nowhere to be seen, implying that she must have gotten out. And there was water running in the bathroom.

He walked up to the door to see someone shaving. Someone with long, black hair and a pair of glasses. In other words, he was looking at a near-mirror image of himself. He was beyond surprised to see his double in front of him, causing him to drop his knife.

"I figured I'd run into you here, eventually," the double said, adjusting his glasses. "I was wondering why you moved here from Yokohama."

"I got a job."

"Yes, a job, involving those freaks of nature known as Digimon. It's thanks to them and that idiot Masaru that I'm trapped here."  
Kurata had no idea what his double was talking about. Maybe his double came from some sort of alternate reality and had some sort of altercation with the Tamers there. He didn't know.

If that was the case, however, there was a possibility that being here was dangerous. After all, he did somehow sense his alternate counterpart. Who knows what else may happen.

But then the double reached out.

And Kurata felt the man's hands around his neck.

* * *

A mysterious blackout happened that night in Kurata's apartment building. Nobody knew what caused it, though there was a peculiar power surge coming from a certain Akihiro Kurata's apartment. However, nobody knew what caused that surge, nobody except for Kurata himself, who had a disturbing air around him ever since that day. He broke up with Megumi unexpectedly after that.

Sometime later, he received a job offering from Echelon. He took it. Yamaki at Hypnos appreciated his contributions and held a going away party for him. He didn't come.

That was when Yamaki remembered his back-up plan in case Akihiro Kurata didn't work out at Hypnos. Out of fury of Kurata's rudeness in not attending his own going away party, he had Shibumi call his Chilean friend to see if the man was still interested in taking a job at Hypnos, despite not knowing very much Japanese. The man had completely forgotten about the offer, but he accepted, though it would be a while before they met face-to-face.

* * *

Koji Minamoto couldn't believe it. He was in charge of the World Championship tournament. His last transmission from Jacob McCloskey in the future also figured out the source of the Unification. Koji decided to use this in accordance with the World Championship. For some reason, the two seemed to line up really well. He just needed to make sure that the catalyst ended up at the World Championship Tournament and that it was heavily guarded.

He just needed to figure out where to have it. Looking over the information on his computer about various places, he found one that would suffice, a place called Ember Island. It would be far enough away that whoever desired the catalyst wouldn't be able to get it and anyone who happened to get there wouldn't be able to tell where they were using a GPS.

Still, there was the question of how to get there. He did have a number of programs at his disposal, including one that created a digital field and used a vortex to transport something to specified cooridinates. There was also Solarmon's mega form.

The black-haired man just wanted to get everything over with. He hoped that maybe he could delay the Unification after finding out about its catalyst. He just didn't want to resort to illegal means to do it.

It was a hot, July day when the Shinjuku Tournament was held. Takato got up early to make sure his deck was top notch for it before heading off to take part in it. He ran into all his friends when he got there and they compared notes and registered.

One person Takato saw when he got there was Ruki. She was standing across the room talking to a silver-haired tamer he recognized as Ryouma from Koto. He didn't know the silver-haired boy well and their relationship seemed more like a friendly rivalry than anything as far as taming was concerned, but he saw the guy every so often at Hypnos meetings.

Still, it had been awhile since he saw Ruki. Every time he thought he got over her, he'd see her again and those feelings he had for her would come up again. He didn't even know how they got so strong in the first place. Still, he wanted to at least be friends again. It seemed like every tamer that he knew at least had a working relationship with her, Juri being one of her best friends along with Miki and Ayaka, two new Tamers from school. It was from them that he found out that Juri was dating someone.

The boy clenched his fists, grabbing hold of his deck. It was his best deck yet and he hoped that he could win this tournament. For her.

No, he didn't hope that he could win it. He would win it. He would make sure of it. Even if he had to defeat every other tamer in the championship to get to Ruki, he would do it just to be able to talk to her again.

He hoped that he could do that. He wanted to so badly.

It was now or never. He sat down at his assigned seat for the first round and faced his opponent, putting his heart into his deck so that he could defeat everyone he came across.

He had no idea what the future would bring, but he was sure that she would be back in it.

* * *

Next: Digimon Tamers: World Tournament Chapter 1: Tamers of Japan

A/N: Yeah, that's the end of this first story. Hope it wasn't too depressing for you. The Rukato part of the story will really pick up in the sequel which is hopefully far longer. Also, the sequel will be longer and more character-driven. There are a lot of characters in that one, too, though hopefully they'll be deeper (the first couple of chapters only have a couple of OCs in them, though there are minor background characters from the show that have been given partners). And then there's the plot, which is better, despite ripping off Yu-gi-oh… kidding. No, there won't be Millennium Items in the fic.

I guess I'll give you guys a preview. The first chapter is already written.

_It's been two-and-a-half years since the D-Reaper and the Tamers are at peace. Their ranks have increased and their forces are stronger than ever._

_ Unfortunately, Ruki Makino has distanced herself from the others and is about to go to the biggest Digimon Card Game tournament ever held. Takato finds an opportunity to see her again there, and takes it, even though he and Hirokazu have to work as security for one of the contestants, a boy who may be the key to the worlds' unification._

_ The stakes have never been higher as the Tamers are forced to deal with a plot to remove Takato and Ruki from the game. A pair of enemy Tamers want to even out the competition, and they are willing to go to whatever lengths to do so. Meanwhile, another Tamer has to face his past and the realization that getting things back to how they were isn't as easy as it seems._


End file.
